The best way to tackle a penalty shoot-out, perhaps, is to avoid it.

Poor England, slow learners, don't get that. All these years, they haven't. For them, each successive exit via a shootout loss at a high-profile tournament only adds to the collective heartbreak of a nation seeking some sort of refuge from their footballing mediocrity.

Sunday night's ouster had no great drama of the episodes of the past. When Ashley Cole lined up his left-footed shot, you knew it would go to Gianluigi Buffon. It did, no great theatre there, yet as the Italian goalkeeper before the experienced Cole grew in size and the goal shrunk, it showed up England's inferiority complex again.

An earlier piece wondered if, under Hodgson's pragmatism, England had finally managed to shed their underachieving tag. One must confess, one had completely overlooked the spectre of penalty shootouts that traditionally comes to haunt England. In their new workmanlike avatar , they seemed to have overcome that barrier without even having approached it.

In On Penalties, his book on the psychology of the penalty, author Andrew Anthony says, "England have grown comfortable with the prospect of not winning." The notion is that at least they weren't bundled out in regulation time , and it adds to the idea of an honourable defeat.

That seems good enough for England. You could say that stretching the Italians for the most tedious 120 minutes in recent footballing memory could give Roy Hodgson's England some semblance of credibility- even if Andrea Pirlo's contemptuous chip over Joe Hart in the shoot-out fully established the difference in class between the two sides.

But then, what of the Italians, you might counter. What are the odds they wouldn't succumb to the vagaries of a shootout instead? That is precisely the point - somewhere even the lottery of penalties usually conforms to the formbook. Eventually, it is where the men are separated from the pretenders. Anthony quotes Glenn Hoddle, the England manager in the 1998 World Cup, on the German mindset regarding penalties. "If you keep winning them, like the Germans, psychologically they feel that it is going to go their way. The confidence is there ... It's just a mental thing."

Anthony is less charitable about Italy, arguing that their "supposed hot-blooded passion is perhaps not the ideal temperament for a shoot-out" but it was clear that Cesare Prandelli's men had clearly the game always in their grasp.

After each England failure, much is written about the need for their squads to practice penalty-taking ahead and during World Cups and the Euros. It is an interesting contrast to what Pep Guardiola reportedly preached during his stint at Barcelona recently. Such is their steadfastness in staying true to their ideals of beautiful football that preparing for shoot-outs is not part of their system.

In an almost arrogant 'lose but not win ugly' credo, Barcelona have discarded the need to be ready when the lottery comes to play. Of course, England are a long way off from being a Barcelona. Having watched the English play like them all evening - eight men in defence - yet not having the depth to fully carry out the impersonation, must have amused Italy. They also must have guessed in striving hard not to concede, rather than score, that England had stepped into unfamiliar territory. It showed, yet again, in the shoot-out where England's historical frailties were exposed.

In his book, Anthony argues that there are footballers whose personalities are fundamentally unsuited to taking penalties. Extend that psychological profile to a team and a shape of an England XI forms before your eyes. Cole will recover. Like Roberto Baggio, the most celebrated of penalty-missers, said, the only way not to miss a penalty is not to take one. But then, do the English have a choice?