Roy Hodgson´s England Face Italy

Roy Hodg­son

Roy Hodgson´s Eng­land face Italy at the Olympic Sta­dium in the 2012 European Cham­pi­on­ships Quarter Finals this Sunday. The Three Lions defeated Ukraine by 1–0 in their final group game thanks to a Wayne Rooney goal, while the Itali­ans beat the Repub­lic of Ire­land 2–0 cour­tesy of goals from Ant­o­nio Cas­sano and Mario Balotelli.

Eng­lish football´s most cel­eb­rated player, Wayne Rooney, scored his 29th inter­na­tional goal when the trig­ger happy Manchester United marks­man headed The Three Lions into the lead in the 48th minute of the match against Oleh Blokhin´s Ukraine. The goal proved to be the win­ner as Roy Hodgson´s undefeated Eng­land side man­aged to take all three points from the Olympic Sta­dium in Kiev. Italy, for their part, got the bet­ter of the Repub­lic of Ire­land to the com­fort­able tune of 2–0 at the Muni­cipal Sta­dium in Poznan in their last group match. Cesare Prandelli´s team, which is built on a pad­lock defence and the abil­ity to counter attack, will of course be a much tougher side to beat than The Yel­low Blues and Wayne Rooney and the rest of his Eng­land team mates now have to pon­der how they can break down the dreaded caten­ac­cio sys­tem of the Itali­ans. Eng­land Squad: Robert Green, Joe Hart, John Ruddy, Leighton Baines, Gary Cahill, Glen John­son, Ash­ley Cole, Joleon Lescott, Phil Jones, John Terry, Gareth Barry, Stew­art Down­ing, Steven Ger­rard, James Mil­ner, Scott Parker, Theo Wal­cott, Phil Jagielka, Ash­ley Young, Jer­main Defoe, Andy Car­roll, Alex­an­der Oxlade-Chamberlain, Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck.

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