England were rocked after five minutes when Croatia scored through Kovac, but Sven’s men produced the perfect performance and came back with an equaliser through Paul Scholes, his first England goal in three years and a wonderful second goal from Rooney.

A third from Rooney on 68 minutes gave England some breathing space but Croatia came back with a header from Tudor on 74. But Frank Lampard again gave England a two goal cushion with an excellent finish on 79 minutes.

A great overall performance by England, on to Portugal…………….

Eriksson said: "There was Pele in 1958 in Sweden but I don't remember anybody at 18 years old since then. I doubt it very much. I don't really know what to say. He is absolutely fantastic, not only at scoring goals but he plays football.

"He drops into midfield and can take it and hold it. He can turn with it. When we have problems he drops into midfield. He is not just a goalscorer, he is a complete footballer and I'm happy to have him in the England team. He deserves all the attention and all the front page headlines. I sometimes feel I shouldn't say too much but he has been absolutely incredible."

Eriksson was particularly thrilled for Paul Scholes.

"He is a real, real footballer," said Eriksson of the Manchester United midfielder who had gone 30 international matches without a goal. "Give him the ball and he'll keep it and put players in but that goal was good for his confidence. We deserved it. With a bit of luck we could have had nine points in this group. We were three minutes away from that.

"I'm very proud of the players. It is now important that we try to recover as quickly as possible and as intelligently as possible because we have one day less than Portugal."

Steven Gerrard said: "I feel there is no better player in Europe at the moment than Wayne Rooney. If he keeps on putting in performances like that then one day he can also become the best player in the world.

"His performances in this tournament have been so mature. Everything he has done has been spot on. He's holding the ball up well, bringing people into play, scoring important goals. Hopefully he can continue like this till the end of the tournament.

"He can definitely help us win it. If you look at his performances over the last three games, he has definitely helped us get to the quarter-finals and I'm sure he'll help us progress even more. But the whole team is doing well and, if we keep playing like we did, not many sides will want to meet us."