Mark Sampson is already looking towards the World Cup after guiding England Women to their third Cyprus Cup title.
Lianne Sanderson’s clinical finish on 67 minutes was enough to defeat Canada in the final of the annual friendly tournament.
The head coach congratulated his players on their achievement – but said the World Cup is at the forefront of his thoughts.
England Women 1-0 Canada
Cyprus Cup
The Final
Wednesday 11 March
Larnaca, Cyprus
He said: “I’m incredibly proud of the players and all the staff. It’s been a massive effort from them in this tournament.
“We have raised the bar high but the objective now is to go and raise it even further.
“We are in a really good place. The challenge is to continue to raise the bar and build momentum.
“We have got to put our foot to the floor and build momentum up to the China game, try and play as well as we can there and keep building up to the summer.”
England reached the final after comfortable group stage wins over Finland and Australia and a dogged 1-1 draw with the Netherlands.
And Sampson said he was delighted with the different qualities his team showed over the course of the four matches.
He added: “We know as a group that it was important for us to win this trophy.
“Whether that was by playing well or not playing so well, we needed to find a way to win this competition and the players have certainly done that.
England Women's boss Mark Sampson speaks to FATV after win against Canada
“For me, the players have showed different sides to them.
“We showed against Finland that we can play, we can dominate the ball [and] we can create chances. We showed against Australia [that] we are lethal on the counter-attack, and against Holland we had to find a way to get a result when we weren’t playing so well.
“I thought [against Canada] we brought all those qualities together.
“Overall, I’m incredibly proud of everyone involved in this team. That was a huge shift.
“To produce the quality of performances we did in those four games, at this stage [of their development] was really impressive.”
England have one more home match before they fly to Canada for the World Cup. They take on China at Manchester City’s new Academy Stadium on Thursday 9 April.
England’s World Cup campaign gets under way against France in Moncton on Tuesday 9 June.
