Wayne Rooney believes England can go all the way at Euro 2012, adding that teams will not want to play against them in the knockout stages.
After coming back from a two-game suspension, the striker scored what turned out to be the winning goal as Roy Hodgson s men put in a somewhat shaky display against co-hosts Ukraine on Tuesday night.
And the Manchester United man believes that by finishing top of Group D and earning an extra day s rest by playing in the fourth quarter-final on Sunday, the Three Lions are in good stead for the rest of the tournament.
I think we know our qualities and what we re capable of, Rooney told ITV. We ve got together and worked really hard, we ve done a lot of tactical play in training and we re difficult to beat.
I don t think there is any team that would fancy playing us, we re difficult to break down and we ve got the players who can score goals, so it s going well at the minute. We ll get a good rest now and hopefully we ll be back fresh.
Having not scored a goal in a major tournament since Euro 2004, the 26-year-old headed home from close range to set up a last-eight clash with Group C runners-up Italy.
(I am) obviously delighted with the win and to score is obviously great. I haven t scored in a major championship for a while so it was nice to get the goal that effectively won us the game, he said.
I thought the whole team were fantastic, we defended really well and stuck in there at times against a difficult crowd, I thought our fans were brilliant as well and we deserved the win.
France finished second after a 2-0 defeat by Sweden in Group D s other game, meaning that the Three Lions avoided a quarter-final clash with tournament favourites Spain, but Rooney says he would not have minded facing either adversary.
I said before it doesn t matter (who England play), the main thing was to get through the group and to finish top is great for us. We play Italy now so it ll be a difficult game of course but we re confident, we believe in ourselves and you never know, he said.
We stuck together, we have a belief in ourselves and are ready for the challenges ahead.
The striker gestured towards his hair when celebrating his goal and added: I used a bit of Andy Carroll s product before the game and he asked me to do it if I scored a header. Hopefully I ll end up with hair like him.
