Hodgson: Italy experience irrelevant

England coach Roy Hodgson said his experience coaching in Italy is irrelevant, ahead of their FIFA World Cup opener.

Hodgson's men open their Group D in Manaus against the Italians, and the 66-year-old is leading his home nation into a World Cup for the first time after a coaching career that began with Swedish club Halmstads BK in 1976.

His first 'big' club that he took the reins of was Inter, where he coached from 1995 to 1997 and had another caretaker stint there in 1999.

Hodgson also coached Udinese in 2001, but he refused to buy into the theory his knowledge of Italian football would help unlock Cesare Prandelli's men in Brazil.

"Not really. I left in … 2001 if you want to be totally precise. So that is 13 years ago," Hodgson said.

"Italian football is not the same.

"There has been enormous change in our own mentality since then, so it would be foolish to base any of our thoughts and plans on me working there 13 years ago."

The first four games of the World Cup have produced 15 goals, and Hodgson said there was no reason why the attacking brand of football would cease for their clash.

"We have seen attacking football; we have seen both teams going at each other searching for the win," he said.

"We've not had a game where one team is interested in winning and the other is only interested in not losing.

"We aim to continue that. I've never seen an England team go out just to get a clean sheet."

Hodgson said he has plenty of respect for the 2006 World Cup winners, and has been researching the Italians since landing in their group.

"We always try to be dominant, but that depends on the opponents," Hodgson said.

"I won't comment on Italy's setup, but I've been looking at them ever since the draw was made (in December) and we think we know a lot about them.

"We have done a lot of work to make sure we don't get caught out by them, but it's a very good Italian team and we know we will have to do everything we do at our best if we are to win."

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