Declan Rice rounded on England's detractors after they reached the quarter-finals of Euro 2020.
Second half goals from Raheem Sterling and under-fire Harry Kane secured a 2-0 win over Germany at Wembley.
England boss Gareth Southgate had been questioned in some quarters for what was seen as a defensive set-up prior to the game.
He'd switched to a 3-4-3 formation, with Jack Grealish relegated to the bench.
The game may not have been pretty, but England's approach was effective in stifling much of what was presumed Germany were capable of.
"It’s incredible," Rice said to BBC Sport after the match, "A lot of people, you look at the group stage games, they’ve written us off.
“Complaints about the performances, not scoring enough goals.
"You read a load of things but as players you put that to the back of your mind and you want to prove people wrong.
“I think today, everyone had that fire in their belly to go out there and one, knock Germany out the tournament and two, for us, progress to the next round.
“It’s history. In the press conference this week all the players have been asked about the previous games against Germany but today we created our own bit of history.
“Gary Neville was saying last night these games don’t come around often and we’ve made the most of that opportunity today.
"It was pleasure to be out there on that pitch.”
After channeling his inner-GAA manager, Rice produced a line that may make West Ham and Republic of Ireland fans wince ever so slightly.
"We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves because Saturday’s a massive game as well now," the 22-year old said.
“We travel to Rome and we want to win that and progress in to the semi-finals.
“All I can say is about today, the occasion, fans, players, how we were up for it in the changing room. I’ve not been a part of a team with togetherness like this.
"We’re all in it with each other and we really believe we’ve got the quality and we really believe with the tournament pretty much being at Wembley we can keep progressing.”
Did you know England Vs Germany was due to take place in Dublin?
