West Ham United midfielder Declan Rice says this England side have written their piece of history by beating Germany at Euro 2020 but insists they’re not done yet.
England saw off their fierce rivals with a 2-0 victory at Wembley in the Round of 16 on Tuesday, thanks to late goals from Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane.
Rice was a formidable presence alongside Kalvin Phillips in midfield as the Three Lions kept their fourth consecutive clean sheet of the tournament and set up a quarter-final clash with Andriy Yarmolenko’s Ukraine.
Rice was fully aware of the magnitude of the victory when he spoke at the final whistle, but was equally keen to stress the team are fully focused on ensuring their tournament journey would continue to the very end.
“Everyone had that fire in their belly to go out there and, for one, knock Germany out of the tournament, and two, progress to the next round,” he said.
“It’s history. In the press conferences this week all the players have been asked about the previous games against Germany, but today we’ve created our own bit of history.
“We’re here at Wembley, Gary Neville was saying last night that these things don’t come around often and we’ve made the most of that opportunity today. It was a pleasure to be out there on the pitch.
“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves because Saturday is a massive game. We travel to Rome and we want to win that and progress to the semi-finals. All I can say about today is the occasion, the fans, the players, how we were up for it in the changing room.
“We’re all in it together and we really believe we’ve got the quality, and with the tournament pretty much being at Wembley, we believe we can keep progressing.”
