England manager Roy Hodgson has revealed his tactical plan to stop Italy's Andrea Pirlo.

The Three Lions meet the Azzurri in the opening game of their World Cup campaign on Saturday evening, with many singling out Pirlo as the danger-man for the Italians.

However, Hodgson has outlined what he will be asking his players to do to limit the Juventus star's influence in Manaus.

The Independent quotes Hodgson as saying: "What are we going to do this time against Pirlo? First, we'll play a lot better, we'll play with more energy because we'll have more energy because it will be the first game in the tournament. We'll be even more compact than we were in that game.

"We're going to make certain also that Italy have a lot more to concern themselves with our attacking play, because one of the problems we had in that game [at Euro 2012] is that we weren't functioning well as an attacking unit.

"So Italy had too much of the ball and we were doing too much defending."

England also come up against Uruguay and Costa Rica in their group.

Written by
Paul Gorst