Harry Kane spends time with fans after England’s historic victory

At around 3am on Sunday, Stockholm police made their first arrests: three underage teenage boys, two 14 year olds and one 16 year old.

Here are some of the talking points for both teams ahead of their clash.

It is the first time England have reached that stage in this tournament since 1990, beyond memory for many younger fans.

Spain were then dumped out by tournament hosts on a penalty shootout.

Former England captain David Beckham also hailed Gareth Southgate’s side as “confident, professional and a team that are playing for each other, playing for the manager and playing for our country”. It eventually paid off with a 2-0 victory.

Former England global Gary Neville, who was assistant to Roy Hodgson when they were knocked out by Iceland in last-16 at Euro 2016, felt the current pool of players have shown great maturity throughout the tournament in Russian Federation. They need opportunities to play.

Ninety minutes separate them from the final and English fans can now start dreaming of the World Cup trophy “coming home”.

But having twice endured the draining, yet ultimately successful, ordeal of extra-time and penalties, the big question over Croatia going into Wednesday’s semifinal will be about how much they have left in the tank.

Ivan Rakitic scored the victor from the spot as Russian goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev dived the opposite direction.

England, though, are not kidding themselves that they have peaked and will return to their Repino base focused on fine tuning their game. The Croatians lost to France in the semis 20 years ago?

Roads and shops were practically deserted as the match kicked off at 3pm, with photos showing usually busy roads, tourist attractions and popular shopping centres were deserted.

Belgium can dare to dream of lifting a maiden World Cup, after a dramatic 3-2 win over Japan in the round of sixteen and a defensively composed performance to knock out five times World Champions Brazil with a 2-1 victory.