England are heading to their first World Cup semi-final in 28 years after beating Sweden 2-0 on Saturday.
Harry Maguire and Dele Alli scored with headers and goalkeeper Jordan Pickford came up with three spectacular saves in recording the clean sheet in Samara.
England will face Croatia who edged host Russia on penalties, in the other quarter-final game of the day.
“We know there’s still a big game ahead, the semi-final,” captain Harry Kane said. “But we’re feeling good, we’re feeling confident.
“I know the fans here and the fans back home – we’ll see some videos later – are enjoying it.
“We just want to make the country proud.”
England’s last semi-final appearance came back in 1990, when they lost to eventual champions West Germany 4-3 on penalties.
Sweden, meanwhile, end a brilliant run in which they had eliminated the Netherlands and Italy in qualifying, topped a finals group containing Mexico and Germany and beat Switzerland in the last 16 to reach their first quarter-final in 24 years.
“England were the best team today,” coach Janne Andersson said. “It’s not that anything goes wrong, they were better.
“We just weren’t good enough to beat this side today.”
After a cautious start for both teams, Maguire opened the scoring on the half-hour, emphatically heading Ashley Young’s corner past keeper Robin Olsen for his first international goal.
It was the eighth of the 11 goals England have scored at the tournament to come from a set piece.
Raheem Sterling had a chance just before half-time when he went wide after rounding Olsen and misfired from a sharp angle with Kane unmarked near the penalty spot.
Sweden were denied an equalizer after the restart when Marcus Berg’s header was kept out by the diving Pickford.
“If we had scored at that point it would have revived the match,” Andersson said.
England struck again in the 59th minute as Alli timed a run to perfection and headed home Jesse Lingard’s cross to the back post.
Moments later, Pickford came up big with a brilliant one-handed save against Claesson and completed his hat-trick of eye-catching stops by tipping Berg’s close-range shot over the bar.
“This is what football’s all about, being on the big stage,” man-of-the-match Pickford said.
“I never put myself under pressure. I just embrace the moment, play in the moment, nothing fazes me.
The Swedes had one last chance but Ludwig Augustinsson blasted a free-kick from the edge of the area over and the final whistle soon sounded, bringing a resounding cheer from the England fans in the crowd of 39,991, who’ve waited so long for a World Cup run.
“It’s an incredible privilege to be the England manager, so to be able to take the team this far and knowing the people who have done it in the past, they are people I hold in such high esteem,” Gareth Southgate said.”
Before the game we wanted to be here another week, it’s up to us now which games we play in.”
