Pirlo’s perfect penalty (video)
The 34-year-old had controlled the game for two hours against the labouring Steven Gerrard and Scott Parker but kept his finest touch till the end when the pressure was at it’s highest.
UEFA stats disclosed that the Juventus midfielder made 131 passes throughout 120 minutes of play.
After watching England go ahead in the penalty shoot out thanks to a miss from Riccardo Montolivo it was Pirlo’s turn to step up.
With Joe Hart preening himself on the goal-line Pirlo casually stepped forward and dinked in the cheekiest of penalties as if it was a training session.
Ashley Young followed that up by smashing his penalty against the crossbar with Italy sealing the shoot-out 4-2 to send England packing.
After the victory Italian coach Cesare Prandelli said: “When Andrea Pirlo stepped up I was very calm – he’s a star and knew what he needed to do; and he did it.
“Penalties are a lottery but I thought we deserved victory in the end. When (Riccardo) Montolivo missed his penalty I was sad as he was one of the best players tonight.
“I wasn’t surprised by tonight. I knew we could control the game. My worry was that we were allowing England too much space on the break – we could have been a bit cleverer in our build-up play.
“We tried to play football. We tried to draw England out; we tried to hit them quickly. I think if we’d scored in the 90 minutes it would have been an even better game.
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