Estonia celebrate their greatest night

Captain Raio Piiroja summed up the mood in the Estonia camp following his side's 3-1 win in Serbia, saying: "It's a wonderful feeling. It was first time in our careers that we were given an ovation in a foreign country. The Serbian supporters applauded us after the match, which was a great experience for my team-mates and I."

Estonia recovered from falling behind to Nikola Žigić's goal to win thanks to strikes from Tarmo Kink and Konstantin Vassiljev and a late Aleksandar Luković own goal to move within a point of Group C leaders Italy in qualifying for UEFA EURO 2012. The result came as a surprise to many, but not the Estonia captain. "We believed it was possible to achieve something in Belgrade," Piiroja said. "We didn't let our heads drop after the Serbian goal and we continued to do our best. The result is our reward."

Kink struck on 63 minutes, three minutes after Serbia's opening goal, and the forward said: "This is the most important result in the history of Estonian football and of our national team. We have never beaten teams like Serbia before. We did not expect this result; we just wanted to play good football. Perhaps the Serbian players did not take us seriously."

Vassiljev, scorer of Estonia's second goal, added: "During the first half we had a lot of attempts from distance and every time we shot high over the crossbar, but we believed we could score that way. We were determined and scored two second-half goals. Tactically we were almost perfect."

Serbia were demoralised after falling to their first defeat in the section. "We expected a hard match and after the game we were shocked," captain Dejan Stanković said. "We have to recover for Tuesday's game in Genoa against Italy. We have to show the strength of this team at a difficult time."