England’s Euro 2012 campaign ended in agony last night as they went out on penalties yet again after drawing 0-0 with Italy.
Ricardo Montolivo missed Italy’s second spot-kick to give England the advantage but Ashley Young and Ashley Cole missed consecutive penalties to allow Alessandro Diamanti the chance to win the shootout for his side with their fifth kick.
Italy dominated for large portions of the match and could count themselves unlucky not to have won it in normal time. Mario Balotelli, Daniele de Rossi and Ricardo Montolivo all spurned good chances and when they did put the ball in the net through Antonio Nocerino it was ruled out for offiside.
Italy’s opponents in the semi-final, Germany, beat Greece 4-2 on Friday while Spain, who face Portugal in the next round, strolled past France 2-0 on Saturday.
England’s cricketers’ fine form continued their fine form against the West Indies with a seven-wicket T20 victory on Sunday.
Alex Hales hit 99 to post England’s highest ever T20 score as England rounded off the series having remained unbeaten throughout.
Fernando Alonso won the European Grand Prix in Valencia in fine style on Sunday but behind him there was some controversy as Lewis Hamilton crashed after he was hit by Pastor Maldonado.
Alonso started the race in eleventh position but rose to second before leader Sebastian Vettel retired with an alternator failure.
England avoided a whitewash at the hands of South Africa, drawing 14-14 thanks in part to an early try from Danny Care in the first half.
Owen Farrell kicked England level in the final minutes after the hosts had gone ahead through JP Peterson and Morne Steyn missed a drop-goal which would have won his side the match.
Unlike England, Wales were unable to avoid a third-straight defeat against their southern hemisphere opponents. They lost 20-19 on Saturday and, despite Ryan Jones going over to give Wales the lead midway through the second half, Australia came back with the boot of Berrick Barnes punishing Welsh errors.
Despite losing all three tests, Wales only gave up a total of eleven points to Australia across all three matches.
Scotland completed a clean sweep of victories with a narrow 17-16 win against Samoa. Rob Harley scored the winning try in the dying seconds of his debut to give Greig Laidlaw the opportunity to put over the conversion to win the match my the tightest of margins.
New Zealand trounced Ireland 60-0, conceding a total of nine tries over an embarrassing 80-minute period. Sam Cane and Sonny Bill Williams both scored twice.
Andy Roddick and David Ferrer completed the perfect warm-up to Wimbledon with wins at Eastbourne and Hertogenbosch respectively.
Roddick beat Italian Andreas Seppi 6-3 6-2 while Ferrer won 6-3 6-4 against Philipp Petzschner of Germany.
Danny Willett finally secured his first victory on golf’s European Tour with a playoff win over Marcus Fraser in the International Open on Cologne. He had managed 19 top ten finished before Sunday’s win.
