English football is littered with depressing shoot-out defeats for the national team and a new chapter was added at club level last night as Everton and Tottenham Hotspur were eliminated from the Uefa Cup on penalties. On an evening when both clubs deserved credit for clawing back first-leg deficits, neither could keep their nerve at the end to move into the quarter-finals.

It was a dramatic reversal of fortune from the previous night, when Liverpool completed a Barclays Premier League quartet in the last eight of the Champions League with their victory over Inter Milan in the San Siro.

“We wanted to win the match and we did, but penalties are a lottery,” Juande Ramos, the Tottenham head coach, said after a 1-0 victory against PSV Eindhoven to level the aggregate score was followed by the first shoot-out defeat of his career, one that prised the Uefa Cup from his grasp after lifting the trophy in each of the previous two seasons with Seville. “We have been eliminated but this isn’t the hardest loss of my career. Everybody is sad. We did everything we could but we didn’t go through.”

Dimitar Berbatov scored with a superb volley to force extra time and Paul Robinson saved PSV’s second penalty in the shoot-out, but Heurelho Gomes, the Dutch team’s goalkeeper, saved Tottenham’s fifth kick, by Jermaine Jenas. Pascal Chimbonda missed the final penalty in sudden death as Tottenham were beaten 6-5.

Everton, trailing 2-0 to Fiorentina after the first leg, were also denied a place in the last eight after producing arguably their best performance of the season to drag the game into extra time at Goodison Park, courtesy of goals in either half from Andrew Johnson and Mikel Arteta.

The Merseyside club would have won in normal time but for a glut of missed chances and the superb form of Sébastien Frey in the Fiorentina goal, but Yakubu Ayegbeni and Phil Jagielka missed their spot-kicks before Mario Alberto Santana struck the decisive blow as the Italian side won the shoot-out 4-2.

David Moyes, the Everton manager, had nothing but praise for his players. “I think it came down to missed opportunities, but it was some effort,” he said. “The players put in a great shift but have got no reward. It was a great atmosphere and the players helped make that by their endeavour and determination. We should have got through but for a very good keeper.”