Owen's treble and goals from Liverpool team-mates Steven Gerrard and Emile Heskey demolished the Germans in their own backyard to boost England's chances of automatic qualification for the 2002 Finals.

He said: 'You can dream about scoring a hat-trick but you don't think it is going to come true. It was unbelievable to come here. No-one would have predicted this scoreline but some of us might have predicted the victory.'

He added on BBC television: 'We are a good team. It's not about me. It is good on a personal note to score a hat-trick but had David Seaman not made a world class save at 1-1 it might have been a different story.'

'Gerrard got a great goal, too. Everyone will get 10 out of 10 in the papers for this performance.'

Captain David Beckham, who had been a doubt for the match all week because of a groin injury, paid tribute to the team's character for coming back after Carsten Jancker had opened the scoring for Germany.

'We knew it was going to be hard to start off which it proved to be when we went 1-0 down,' said the Manchester United midfielder.

'It shows the character of the team. We knew we would have to work hard and we did that. Michael started us rolling and Steve scored with a great strike. We knew in the second half we could not come out and start like we did in the first half, and we went on from there.'

As the goals flew in, the skipper admitted he 'couldn't really believe they were going in like they were'.

He added: 'It was about the whole team tonight. I was lucky enough to be out there with those players.'

England coach Sven Goran Eriksson said: 'It was a very good evening. I always said and always believed we could beat Germany but I could not believe 5-1. It was too much the difference between the teams was maybe not so big.'

'We played very well, we played some beautiful balls and showed we have a very good spirit when we went one down.'

'We did not play well for the first five or 10 minutes but after that we got better and better.'

But Eriksson sounded a note of caution ahead of the qualifier against Albania at St James' Park on Wednesday.

'We have a difficult and dangerous game on Wednesday. This was a great result but after such a victory it would be crazy to lose things.'

Germany coach Rudi Voeller was unable to attend the post-match press conference after it emerged that his father had suffered a heart attack as he watched the game at the Olympic Stadium.

Deputy coach Michael Skibbe attended instead of Voeller and said: 'It was very sad what happened to Rudi's father.'

Erikkson also expressed his sympathy, saying: 'Some things are more important than football.'

Voeller's father, Kurt, was said to be in a stable condition.

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