I agree with most of that.

I think England have an advantage with pace. If the right players are selected, we really could cause the Italians problems.
England have showed that they can sit back and soak up pressure, but that IMO would be suicide with Pirlo dictating play.
Also, it would be criminal not to have Carroll and Rooney up front and really bully their make-shift centre half.

Here's hoping...

Jurgen Klinsman certainly seemed to think it would be an exciting game, maybe he sees something in the way the teams have/will set up that we haven't, i just can't see it myself.

Italy are famed for their pragmatic disciplined approach, although they are transitioning to a more attacking style as the serie A has shown.

England under hodgson have set up much the same way.

Italy to win in extra time for me.

Like others have said its likely to be cagey.

Well at least Ashley Cole consolidated his image with regard to the rest of the country.

Looks like Ashley Young has been struck down with the Lucozade endorsement curse like John Barnes was....

Best team by a mile have gone through.

Disappointing but not entirely unexpected. On the plus side it was good experience for some of the newer faces and despite being a way off our best we still could have made the semi-finals. Rooney's absence from the first two games probably disrupted things for him a bit which is a shame (self-induced I know but still a shame).

Thought Roy of the Rovers, Hart, Johnson, Parker and Lescott were our best overall.

Fair result. Outplayed and outclassed.

England started quite well and shown the type of tempo needed to put the Italians under pressure. They clearly couldn't keep it up and resorted to dropping deep and trying to close down the space that Balotelli nearly thrived in on a few occasions.

Poor/average performance, I didn't think England would win but I'm surprised they managed to stay in the game for so long. As I said in all the other games, England's lack of ability/will to play and play some sort of attacking football was frustrating to watch. A bit more precision/composure/quality and there were chances to exploit Italy, but England were exposed as the game went on and invited too much pressure.

Penalties are decided by the flip of a coin, can't really knock them for going out to penalties but the match itself was disappointing.

Completely unacceptable tonight I thought. Going for the draw and penalties is stupid when you know you are not mentally strong enough to win a shootout.

Milner again spends far too long on the field and didn't do anything positive at all, not one thing. I would love to see the stats on him. Pass completion was nearly zero, never beat a man, didn't make a tackle. He's the worst player in the Euros by a distance, technically awful, tactically awful. He spent his entire game jogging around between Italian passes as if it were a training session. He contributes nothing. This myth that he protects Johnson is ridiculous, he puts him under so much more pressure.

We have banged on about it on here so much before but it's still true, we're so awful technically that we'll never compete. We can't pass the ball, we can't keep the ball. Parker is terrible in that sense, for all the huff and puff, he's still a poor man's Lee Carsley.

But after being dominated for 120 minutes and being thankful that Balotelli is terribly wasteful, it comes down to two moments. Rooney's overhead kick, which he executed terribly, and Young's penalty. If he wasn't thinking of Pizza Hut adverts when he hit that then he needs to call it a day. It's not acceptable to fail to test the keeper from that distance. In penalties if the keeper goes the right way, fine, but at least make him do that.

Plenty to change ahead of the WC. Terry has to go, Cole as well, lauded as the best left back in the world, but did absolutely nothing in an attacking sense, as ever. Parker, Gerrard, Milner and Young must surely have played their last games for England. The future doesn't exactly look bright though when the likes of Henderson seem to be the next in line.

It is not 'a lottery'. It is a contest of who is best at penalties.

England were an embarrassment and thank fook they are out and we are spared the humiliation by the Jawmans.
Once again there was no plan when it came to penalties. i knew Young was going to miss before he took his penalty, because he's a maverick.
If I were England manager, which I am not or never will be, I would say to my goalkeeper ... ''pretend to dive, but don't dive, two of the five will come straight to you''
It does my head in that they dive out of the way of the ball even if it is straight down the middle!

Hart was clearly nervous and had researched which way they were going to go. Seeing how quickly he was committing to it, Italy just added a stutter to their run, which made it very easy. Cole did the same, but then chose the same side Buffon had dove into, the genius.