'Doing it for your country is always special'

Raheem Sterling hailed England's superb collective display as they reached the European Championship quarter-final with a 2-0 win over rivals Germany on Tuesday.

The Manchester City forward broke the deadlock in the 75th minute before captain Harry Kane made sure of victory 10 minutes later when he headed in substitute Jack Grealish's cross, sparking wild celebrations at Wembley.

The victory was England's first against Germany in a knockout round at a major tournament since the 1966 World Cup final.

"We knew we needed a big performance against a difficult side, and we did that today," Sterling said. "Doing it for your country is always special. For half a second I thought let it (Sterling's goal) not be offside, but I'm so happy it went in.

"We knew the intensity we could play at, not a lot of teams can deal with it.

"We kept going, (Declan) Rice and (Kalvin) Phillips, ate up ground and were animals in there. All-round, great team performance.

"We take it game by game, we go away, recover and get focused onto the next one."

England will next face either Sweden or Ukraine in the quarter-finals in Rome on Saturday.