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Prandelli delighted to win lottery against England
Italy coach Cesare Prandelli believes his side deserved to beat England in last night's Euro 2012 final but that they also needed a bit of good luck to win on penalties.
Italy will now face Germany on Thursday from 19:45 (GMT) for a place in the Euro2012 final against Portugal or Spain, while England will be on the plane home.
"I wasn't surprised; 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.'' Prandelli said.
"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.
"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. I was watching with my arm around my son and I told him he was lucky he didn't have to buy a ticket.
"When Andrea Pirlo stepped up I was very calm - he's a star and knew what he needed to do; and he did it. Around 80% of penalty shoot-outs go down to luck. Some players are used to this kind of pressure, some are just calm in these situations - but mainly it's down to good fortune.
"We are delighted but we have to get ready for Germany now. They have had two more days' rest [but] if we have the same approach, the same desire, I think we can compete.
"Germany and Spain are favourites here. We'll need everyone fit and fresh; we're going to go for it. They're always attacking games against Germany. Germany are a great side - they made changes against Greece and it made no difference.
"The game here hasn't long ended and we want to get our players fit - we just want to go home and get to bed, to be honest."