England Women captain Steph Houghton has heaped praise on her team following their victory over Germany in the third-placed playoff at the Women's World Cup.
The Lionesses beat the world's top-ranked side 1-0 after extra time on Saturday thanks to a Fara Williams penalty.
Having narrowly missed out on a place in the final with a dramatic defeat to Japan, Houghton believes that England did themselves proud against the Germans.
"Credit to all the girls and credit to all the staff because we dug deep against a very good German team," she is quoted as saying by Sky Sports News. "I think you've seen the best performance by an English team for a long, long time and I think we deserved that today.
"It showed how together we are as a team, but what a reason to wear the England shirt, I'm absolutely delighted. As a captain, to be able to captain this team and lead this team out over the course of this tournament has been a dream come true and memories that I will hold for ever but these girls make this job easy and the support that I've got from the staff it makes it natural and by far the best moment of my England career."
England had lost 18 and drawn two of their previous 20 games against Germany before last night's triumph.
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