Goal hero Joleon Lescott warned England they still have plenty of hard work ahead to reach the Euro 2012 quarter-finals after holding group favourites France to a 1-1 draw in Donetsk.
Lescott gave England the lead after half an hour only for Manchester City team-mate Samir Nasri to level nine minutes later.
France looked more likely to snatch a second-half winner but England remained solid to secure a point and now face Sweden in Kiev on Friday as well as host nation Ukraine on Tuesday in Donetsk.
Lescott said: "Overall it was a good performance and a very accomplished performance as well. Obviously France are unbeaten in a lot of games (21) so we knew it was going to be tough.
"Before the tournament, France were one of the favourites to win the competition, never mind our group. I think we've got to be positive and take confidence from the result."
Lescott added: "On paper it looks like we've come through the hardest game with a draw.
"But Sweden won't be easy and Ukraine are the home nation. We've still got two tough games. The key is to keep it in our hands and go into each game with everything to play for."
Lescott was perfectly placed to head home his first England goal from a pin-point free-kick from skipper Steven Gerrard.
Reflecting on the goal, the centre-back said: "You are always going to get great delivery from Stevie so it was a relatively easy finish.
"It would have been nice to score the only goal. Probably after our goal we dropped back a bit but it was a good performance.
"If you don't lose games, then confidence continues to grow.
"It didn't matter who we played. It was important not to lose and we achieved that. Now we can build on it."
Captain Gerrard said: "We are not getting carried away and we just need to build on each game and the France game has gone.
"We've got out of it partly what we wanted.
"We will analyse the game and what we did wrong and right and we go for the Swedes now."
Nasri cancelled out Lescott's opened with a low shot which crept inside the post and past the dive of City team-mate Joe Hart.
