Pearce takes positives

His charges were effectively down to nine men after Nedum Onuoha came off injured and Steven Taylor limped around the park in the latter stages and extra-time of the 1-1 draw. But they held on manfully against a technically superior Dutch side and even did themselves proud in the seventh-longest penalty shoot-out of all time, something England are notoriously poor at.

"We were prepared, for weeks we have been practising," Pearce said afterwards. "In the penalty shoot-outs I have been in they have only gone to five or six penalties so it's a step in the right direction."

Even if England had reached the final they would have been without suspended midfielders Nigel Reo-Coker, James Milner, Mark Noble and Tom Huddlestone, plus injured defenders Taylor and Onuoha.

"It was an incredible evening of football," Pearce continued.

"I told the players that when it comes to representing my country I'm emotional about that anyway, but this is probably the proudest moment of achievement I've ever had in football.

"I'm very proud of my squad but bitterly disappointed. It would have been nice to go all the way but whether I would have been able to patch a team together and fielded one, I'm not so sure."

The only moment of controversy was when Taylor - who was clearly injured but stayed on the pitch anyway - tried to limp off during the shoot-out but was forced to stay on and ultimately score his penalty after Dutch coach Foppe de Haan complained to the referee.

"When the [Dutch] coach raised the point, I went on to agree with him," Pearce said.

"The rules are that all the players at the end of the game have to take a penalty. It's the fairest way of doing it.

"The only thing it did was enhance the magnitude of Steven Taylor as a man."

- RM -