Wayne Rooney scored twice in England's 6-0 rout of Andorra on Wednesday, a seventh consecutive qualifying win that pushed the team closer to the World Cup.
Rooney scored either side of Frank Lampard's goal in the first half and his halftime replacement, Jermain Defoe, also found the net twice. Peter Crouch sealed the Group 6 leader's seventh win from seven games with a late strike.
England vs. Andorra
"We have shown in every game various progress and it was the same tonight," said David Beckham, who started his first competitive England match in two years. "It could have been a difficult game, but we made it easy with the way we played. Tonight we can be happy."
A victory over Croatia in the next qualifier in September could be enough to ensure England will reach next year's tournament in South Africa.
Despite playing only the first half, Rooney finished the international season with 10 goals - the highest season total for an England player since Gary Lineker in 1990-91.
Though Andorra was by far the weakest side in the group, England's victory still represented an improvement as it had been held 0-0 by the minnows from the Pyrenees at halftime in their previous two encounters.
This time, there would be no such difficulty breaking down the Andorrans, who are yet to earn a point in qualifying.
Rooney had already had a shot tipped over by goalkeeper Koldo Alvarez and hit the crossbar with a header after Theo Walcott's effort was parried before the striker opened the scoring in the fourth minute.
Rooney timed his run well to meet Glen Johnson's deep ball with a header that beat Alvarez.
"Always when you play against a team that is not strong, you have to start quickly, press and win back the ball. That is what we did," England manager Fabio Capello said. "We didn't start well against Andorra last time we played them, we didn't score but we moved on, step by step."
