Football may not be coming home, but England's footballers are, after the operatic agony of a shoot-out against Italy
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A dejected Ashley Young after his penalty miss. Photograph: Lee Smith/Action Images
Stop all the clocks. Make alternative plans for next weekend. Remove the smudged Cross of St George flag from your passenger window. England are out of Euro 2012 after a defeat on penalties to Italy on a night of grand footballing drama in Kiev that was first explosive, then thumb-gnawingly attritional, and finally, for England, rather desolate.
If there is consolation for Roy Hodgson's team, it is that they have exceeded expectations. They played their part in an absorbing quarter-final capped by the operatic agony of a shootout, but serenaded right to the death by a wonderfully unrelenting band of supporters camped at one end of the stadium.
The end, when it came, was swift: with the match scoreless after 120 minutes, Riccardo Montolivo missed an early penalty for Italy, only for Ashley Young to then miss for England, before Ashley Cole's weak kick was saved. That left Alessandro Diamanti to win it for Italy – which he did nervelessly.
And so football may not be coming home, but England's footballers are, after one last trip back to Krakow to say farewell to a city that has proved a happy choice as team base. There will be many regrets at what might have been after the resilient, disciplined and very occasionally exuberant victories against Sweden and Ukraine. But then, this has turned out to be an unexpectedly heartening tournament for England fans generally, fortified in advance by the widespread rock-bottom expectations of a team stitched together in record time and depleted of key players by the usual roster of twangs and sprains and twists.
On their final outing at Euro 2012, England persevered for the full 120 minutes, a team of tyros and old hands pushed the limits of their energies but still retaining the tactical disciplines Hodgson has conjured, even as they faded against superior opposition.
As the hours ticked away towards kickoff, this had felt like the moment Kiev, the venue for the final, really got the idea of staging a football tournament. In brilliant sunshine, its central boulevards were thronged with local oddities: pigeon-fanciers, Ukrainian body-poppers and a miniskirted cowgirl folk-drumming troupe, while in the heart of the fan zone a slice of England had erected itself.
By late afternoon, a thousand shirtless Englishmen – some in cardboard Prince Philip masks – were bouncing around on a stage at the now-occupied Swedish Corner singing God Save the Queen, Football's Coming Home, and You Can Stick Your Leaning Tower Up Your Arse, the only mildly adversarial note on show.
The 70,000-capacity Olympics stadium is by far the biggest venue at Euro 2012, a vast, spiny space cruiser of a construction plonked in the heart of Kiev, the kind of flagship enormo-drome built with precisely this kind of global sporting beano in mind. It was from England's end, source of a defiantly tuneless God Save the Queen before kickoff, that the greater noise came as the match began with a spell entirely dominated by Italy: Daniele De Rossi hit the post with a shot from 20 yards in the third minute. At that stage, England had failed to complete a single pass.
England survived, and were briefly rampant, showing a thrilling aggression in the tackle and creating chances for Glen Johnson, Danny Welbeck and Scott Parker. For Hodgson's England, this was something new: a fluency seen so far only in glimpses in the helter-skelter second half against Sweden.
This match had been billed as the footballing equivalent of a fight between two hedgehogs, a meeting of counter-punchers forever crouched behind their defensive quills. Instead, the first half was absorbingly cut and thrust, with both teams committing themselves to sometimes full-blooded attack.
At the end of a goalless first half accompanied by sudden swirling chants of "Ukraine" from the massed neutrals present, Italy had wrested control and might have taken the lead at the start of the second but for Joe Hart's double save from De Rossi and Riccardo Montelivo as they turned the screw, led by the strolling playmaker Andrea Pirlo.
Hodgson, who managed Pirlo at Internazionale, had greeted Italy's key player with a kiss and a friendly hug before kickoff, while the day before the match England's manager had been seen chatting amicably with his old friends in the Italian press, who had labelled him, in tribute to his nous, an "Italian-English manager". Here Hodgson made a staunchly English final gambit on the hour mark, bringing on the forward bludgeon Andy Carroll and the jet-heeled but callow Theo Walcott.
It wasn't enough to prevent extra time, during which Italy were dominant, the sparkling Diamanti hitting the post and then providing the cross from which Antonio Nocerino headed in from an offside position. But this was a game that always looked to be heading for penalties, even with England out on their feet. It was, if not an unfair ending – Italy deserved their victory – a cruel one for a team who had given their all.
If there is consolation for Roy Hodgson's team, it is that they have exceeded expectations. They played their part in an absorbing quarter-final capped by the operatic agony of a shootout, but serenaded right to the death by a wonderfully unrelenting band of supporters camped at one end of the stadium.
The end, when it came, was swift: with the match scoreless after 120 minutes, Riccardo Montolivo missed an early penalty for Italy, only for Ashley Young to then miss for England, before Ashley Cole's weak kick was saved. That left Alessandro Diamanti to win it for Italy – which he did nervelessly.
And so football may not be coming home, but England's footballers are, after one last trip back to Krakow to say farewell to a city that has proved a happy choice as team base. There will be many regrets at what might have been after the resilient, disciplined and very occasionally exuberant victories against Sweden and Ukraine. But then, this has turned out to be an unexpectedly heartening tournament for England fans generally, fortified in advance by the widespread rock-bottom expectations of a team stitched together in record time and depleted of key players by the usual roster of twangs and sprains and twists.
On their final outing at Euro 2012, England persevered for the full 120 minutes, a team of tyros and old hands pushed the limits of their energies but still retaining the tactical disciplines Hodgson has conjured, even as they faded against superior opposition.
As the hours ticked away towards kickoff, this had felt like the moment Kiev, the venue for the final, really got the idea of staging a football tournament. In brilliant sunshine, its central boulevards were thronged with local oddities: pigeon-fanciers, Ukrainian body-poppers and a miniskirted cowgirl folk-drumming troupe, while in the heart of the fan zone a slice of England had erected itself.
By late afternoon, a thousand shirtless Englishmen – some in cardboard Prince Philip masks – were bouncing around on a stage at the now-occupied Swedish Corner singing God Save the Queen, Football's Coming Home, and You Can Stick Your Leaning Tower Up Your Arse, the only mildly adversarial note on show.
The 70,000-capacity Olympics stadium is by far the biggest venue at Euro 2012, a vast, spiny space cruiser of a construction plonked in the heart of Kiev, the kind of flagship enormo-drome built with precisely this kind of global sporting beano in mind. It was from England's end, source of a defiantly tuneless God Save the Queen before kickoff, that the greater noise came as the match began with a spell entirely dominated by Italy: Daniele De Rossi hit the post with a shot from 20 yards in the third minute. At that stage, England had failed to complete a single pass.
England survived, and were briefly rampant, showing a thrilling aggression in the tackle and creating chances for Glen Johnson, Danny Welbeck and Scott Parker. For Hodgson's England, this was something new: a fluency seen so far only in glimpses in the helter-skelter second half against Sweden.
This match had been billed as the footballing equivalent of a fight between two hedgehogs, a meeting of counter-punchers forever crouched behind their defensive quills. Instead, the first half was absorbingly cut and thrust, with both teams committing themselves to sometimes full-blooded attack.
At the end of a goalless first half accompanied by sudden swirling chants of "Ukraine" from the massed neutrals present, Italy had wrested control and might have taken the lead at the start of the second but for Joe Hart's double save from De Rossi and Riccardo Montelivo as they turned the screw, led by the strolling playmaker Andrea Pirlo.
Hodgson, who managed Pirlo at Internazionale, had greeted Italy's key player with a kiss and a friendly hug before kickoff, while the day before the match England's manager had been seen chatting amicably with his old friends in the Italian press, who had labelled him, in tribute to his nous, an "Italian-English manager". Here Hodgson made a staunchly English final gambit on the hour mark, bringing on the forward bludgeon Andy Carroll and the jet-heeled but callow Theo Walcott.
It wasn't enough to prevent extra time, during which Italy were dominant, the sparkling Diamanti hitting the post and then providing the cross from which Antonio Nocerino headed in from an offside position. But this was a game that always looked to be heading for penalties, even with England out on their feet. It was, if not an unfair ending – Italy deserved their victory – a cruel one for a team who had given their all.
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