England manager Gareth Southgate said their shootout victory over Colombia at the World Cup on Tuesday will give the team "belief for generations to follow."
Pegged back late by a Colombia equaliser, England were forced to settle the game from the spot, where they had lost in all three of their previous attempts at the World Cup and six of seven in major tournaments.
And Southgate, who missed the decisive penalty against Germany that saw England eliminated in the Euro 96 semifinals, said the result in Moscow was a turning point for the Three Lions -- and the country.
"We have fantastic supporters who have had to stand with us through decades of disappointment and this was a really special moment for our country," Southgate said. "Today will give belief for generations to follow and not be hindered by history or expectations.
"The players have really executed everything [in the shootout] that we've talked about exceptionally well and we showed incredible resilience to come back from huge disappointment at the final whistle and keep our calm. It's a special moment for us."
Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford spoke of researching Colombia's penalty tendencies, and Southgate credited the 24-year-old and his staff for seeing them through.
"They are tough," Southgate told ITV about shootouts. "We talked long and hard about owning the process, and they kept calm -- great credit to all our staff and the players who've taken everything on board, and we got our reward today.
"We looked at individual technique, we looked at how we needed to be as a team. The goalkeeper's very important in that."
And though his counterpart Jose Pekerman accused England players of faking fouls, Southgate praised his team for largely avoiding reactions to a feisty game that saw 36 fouls and Colombia booked six times to England's two.
"We are getting smarter, and maybe played by the same rules as the rest of the world," Southgate said. "But we kept our dignity and our sportsmanship and if we were down it was because we were fouled. I am proud of the discipline."
Southgate also said he was not surprised by the physical approach from the South Americans.
"I don't know if I 'didn't expect it' but we didn't rise to it, which was brilliant," he told ITV. "A couple of times we lost our cool a little bit but generally speaking we kept our nerve."
Next up is a quarterfinal clash against Sweden, and Southgate vowed to keep marching forward for the fans who made the trip to Russia.
"Our fans that were here were brilliant but it was almost an away game, so to deal with all of that was exceptional," he said. "It's something the players can always look back on now and draw on as an experience.
"We've talked about creating their own stories and creating their own history and we've done a little bit of that tonight. We go to a quarterfinal, but I don't want to go home yet."