I knew it was a goal…
As soon as I saw the ball coming towards me, after a brilliant delivery from Ashley Young, and then I made a sweet connection - in fact, it actually felt like it didn’t really connect at all, it just flew perfectly straight off my forehead.
You always know that if you can make a strong contact and head it down, it’s got a chance. The corner was right in the target area that we’d worked on in training, so that was pleasing too.
The moment I saw it hit the back of the net was definitely the best moment of my career so far - my first goal for England and in the quarter final of the World Cup.
It was such a proud moment to score my first international goal, but to do it in a World Cup quarter final was just incredible.
Not just for me, but for all of the lads, to reach the semi-final of the World Cup was a proud moment for ourselves. It’s been a great achievement for the whole group and we’ve now got a massive game on Wednesday.
And we’re still focused, we’re still ready to go, we know we have a job to do and it’s really important that we don’t stop here.
We have a good chance to go and make new history and that’s what we want to do.
For me personally, I’ve loved the whole World Cup experience so far. It’s been well documented that I went to the Euros in France two years ago as a fan with my friends and I loved that, so it’s great to see the fans out here and the footage of the scenes back home.
There’s been so many videos going around over the last week or so that it’s hard to pick a favourite but it’s always nice to see the bars and everything explode when a goal goes in the back of the net with the celebrations and the smiles on people’s faces.
I loved the experience that I had as a fan two years ago, it was unbelievable celebrating getting through the group stages there with the fans.
The passion that the England fans show is immense and it really gave me an opportunity to see how hard they have to work to put their time and their hand in their pockets to come and experience something like a World Cup.
The way the fans have been towards us over here has been incredible. It’s like having an extra man on the pitch with the noise they’ve been making, even though they’ve been out-numbered a few times in games.
It’s just been crucial for us all and when you look after the games and see the support we’re getting back home, it’s quite incredible.
It’s great to see that we are making the country proud and happy. That’s what we set out to do at the start of the tournament, we all wanted to make the nation proud and now we’re ready to go and do it again.
