CHENGDU, Southwest China, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- England enjoyed an exciting 6-1 win over Argentina here on Monday and were ecstatic after earning the quarterfinal berth of the Women's World Cup with the victory.

"Everybody is ecstatic to score six goals on the fantastic night," said Kelly Smith, who scored a double and now has four goals to share the tournament scoring lead. "We are confident we can get a result in the quarter-finals."

England coach Hope Powell had played on England's last quarter-final team in 1995 before being appointed as the first ever full-time national coach of the women's team and the first female to be given the job in June 1998.

"I can't remember much as a player," Powell said. "I'm just really happy for the players of tonight, all the staff. It's been a very, very long journey."

With the near perfect victory, England reached the World Cup quarter-finals as the second finishers of Group A on 5 points, trailing the unbeaten Germany by two points after the defending champions beat Japan 2-0 on the same day to lead the group.

"I'm very satisfied with the result," said Powell at a post-match press conference. "All my players have well performed."

England will take the winners of Group B in Saturday's quarter-finals, most possibly against the United States or DPR Korea which jointly lead the standings before Tuesday's last round matches.

"It'll be a tough game for us whether we play the U.S. or the DPR Koreans," said Powell.

"In the last two years, we've improved a lot. Step by Step, there's a brand-new England team in the world cup. And a match against the twice champions Americans will be a good chance for us to test squad.

"If we meet the Koreans...we know it's a very strong team, and we'll well prepared for it.

"Our pre-tournament goal is to reach the quarters. We've done with it now," she added.

Argentine scored their first goal of the tournament with skipper Eva Gonzalez who committed an own goal to send England on 1-0 lead 9 minutes into the game.

Also the Albiceleste team which only made their second appearance in the women's world cup, broke their own record made four years ago after conceding 16 goals here in China in the group stage of the FIFA grandest tournament.

Coach Jose Carlos Borrello seemed upset about the defeat, which sent them again to exit with three loses in as many matches.

"We have a very young team which have just few experiences of competing on the world stage. It had been lucky for us to qualify for the world cup finals," he said.

"Comparing to the level of European women's soccer, we've been far behind in development," added Borrello. "The geographic position of Argentina has decided that our team has less opportunities than the Europeans to play international competitions with other high-level teams.

"As you can see in the match against England, physically and technically, there's big difference between England and us. Our goal is to develop women's football in the following four to eight years, not only for this tournament.

"We felt sorry to lose but there's a long road to go for us," he added.