Roy Hodgson: 'You can't teach players Andrea Pirlo's spot kick cool'

England boss Roy Hodgson has insisted no amount of practice can prepare you for the pressure of a penalty shoot-out.

England are coming to terms with their failure from the spot again after crashing out 4-2 on spot kicks to Italy.

The Euro 2012 quarter-final defeat means they have now bowed out of six tournaments on penalties, the last four of which have come at the quarter-final stage.

On this occasion it was Manchester United’s Ashley Young and Ashley Cole of Chelsea who missed after the goal-less draw at Kiev’s Olympic Stadium.

Hodgson said: "It has become an obsession for us in English football.

"They'd all done extremely well in practice but you can't reproduce the tension, the occasion, the nervousness.

"This sort of cool, calculated way that Pirlo had to have the confidence to chip the goalkeeper - you either have that as a player or you don't, and no amount of coaching or training will help reproduce that."

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