It was a historic night at Wembley as 77,768 people turned up to watch the Lionesses face Germany.
England were facing one of the best teams in the world and that showed when Alexandra Popp headed in the opener on eight minutes, to score her 53rd international goal.
Nikita Parris' missed penalty was forgotten at half-time after Ellen White slotted home the equaliser 44 minutes in.
But, England's night ended in disappointment after Klara Bühl put the visitors back ahead in the 90th minute.
No celebrations in the England camp
“The players aren’t celebrating. We’re not celebrating at all," Phil Neville said as he faced the media post-match. “We wanted to win the game. We wanted to beat the second best team in the world and that was a real killer blow at the end.”
England have won just one game since their semi-final defeat to the USA in this summer's FIFA World Cup.
Even then, it took a blunder from the Portuguese goalkeeper Patrícia Morais to gift Beth Mead and the Lionesses the victory.
Neville said: “There’s no hiding away from the fact [things have gone backwards since the World Cup], we’ve spoken as a group.
"One in Seven is totally unacceptable. It’s not what I see as success. We need to do something about it very, very quickly.
“We can talk about the emotional highs and feeling the fatigue and everything of the World Cup, but when you get to November that becomes an excuse. And we’re not having any excuses.”
Neville takes responsibility
It's difficult to pin-point exactly where things are going wrong for an England side full of world-class talent, playing at the very top level of women's football.
“I don’t think we’re where we need to be in terms of what we want to achieve and where we want to go, and that starts with me," acknowledges the England boss.
“I’ve got to take responsibility for those results. I’m the one that picks the teams. I’m the one that sets the tactics. I talk to them [the players], I communicate with them.
“Ultimately the buck has got to start and finish with me because the team always reflects the manager.
“And at this moment in time the results haven’t been good enough, which means that I’ve not been good enough.”
Parallels with USA defeat
The last time England played a game of the highest magnitude was the World Cup semi-final against the USA.
It was a night to forget for the Lionesses as they suffered a 2-1 defeat at the hands of the best team in the world.
Neville reflected: “I thought in the first 20 minutes we played like we did in the first 20 minutes of the USA game [World Cup semi-final], but what I would say is in this game we actually came out of it and I thought we were lucky to come out of at one-nil.
“All of a sudden at 22 minutes we started to play how we wanted to, how we trained all week and from 22 minutes then until 82 minutes the game went exactly how we thought it would go.
“It was a game played at the top level of women’s football against the second best team in the world, you cannot for a split second lose concentration. You cannot for a split second switch off, not get back to the right positions, not play the right pass or not pass at the right angle.
“We weren’t good enough and Germany were better than us in those periods and thats why they won the game.”
England's penalty woes continue...
Nikita Parris stepped up to take England's penalty midway through the first-half, a pivotal moment considering her side had struggled to get a foot-hold on the game.
“I always think with penalties, it takes unbelievable courage to take them and to stand up there. Nikita has done that three or four times, even after missing two or three as well,” Neville said.
“We’re at a stage where it’s probably hampered England for a long time [winning penalty shoot-outs and scoring important penalties], on the men’s side in particular.
“I’m never going to criticise anyone that stands up there but we need to start sticking them away that’s for sure. If we’d have stuck that one away today we wouldn’t have lost the game.”
Just shy of another attendance record
The record for a England women's fixture may have been broken on Saturday night when over 77,000 fans turned up to roar on the Lionesses.
But, they failed to beat the 80,023 that turned up to watch the USA beat Japan to gold in the 2012 London Olympics - an all time record for a women's match on English soil.
Neville said: “Nearly 10,000 people obviously didn’t turn up and I think they missed out.
“The weather and traffic obviously played a massive part. I think we knew going into the game that to get the 86,000 everything had to be absolutely perfect.
“But I think we’ve got to applaud the 77,000 people that came, the noise they made and the support they gave to the team. We need to make sure we don’t forget how far we’ve come.
“The game before I took charge, we played Russia at Tranmere and there was only 7000. I think we’ve come an unbelievably long way in a short space of time.”