Luka Modric predicted a 'bright future' for England after Gareth Southgate's young team took a modicum of revenge over Croatia for their semi-final World Cup defeat.
Four months on from the devastation of that 2-1 loss in Russia, England turned the tables in all manners at Wembley by dominating possession and fighting back from behind to progress to the Nations League semi-finals.
It was not a like-for-like result by any means, but it was a strong indicator of the progress made under Southgate that England enjoyed one of those rare occasions where they controlled the game against an elite nation.
Modric did not share the assessment, claiming the World Cup finalists deserved to win again, but believes the current generation of England players is on the cusp of big things.
Modric said: 'I don't know if they have improved since the summer. That is maybe a question for them to assess if they are improving or not.
'But I see them like a good, young team with a bright future in front of them. They are in final four of this Nations League and it is showing that they are in a good way.' A demonstration of England's improvement since Russia could be seen in the nature of the two performances - in the World Cup Croatia dominated possession and created more chances; at Wembley England 62 per cent of the ball and 17 shots to 12. Much of that stemmed from midfield, in which Modric was largely muted, but the 33-year-old felt Croatia warranted the victory.
He said: 'It is a bit painful to lose in this way because we prepared well for set-pieces. We knew England are dangerous from set pieces but in the end they got two goals from set-pieces and it is a bit painful.
Apart from the first 20 or 25 minutes we were the better team.' England's win was marked with the playing of 'Football's Coming Home' over the stadium sound system - a play on the furore generated by the use of the song during the World Cup, which was interpreted as arrogant at the time by the Croatians ahead of their semi-final win.
Croatia captain Modric, who had a lengthy wait in the tunnel to swap shirts with former Tottenham team-mate Harry Kane, insisted it was time for his team to draw a line under the issue.
He added: 'We said how we felt at the World Cup and that is it, we don't need to go back and talk about this. That is it, it is finished. This is a new game and we don't need to look back and make more comments about it.
'I don't want to change what we said because we felt that way. But no matter, between players and teams it is huge respect. We respect England, they respect us. We never meant it about players and coaches, I mean people around England.'