If England are to win the World Cup, they may look back on Sunday night at the Azteca Stadium as the moment they proved it was possible.
Fuelled by two goals from Jude Bellingham and a captain's penalty from Harry Kane, England emerged from one of the fiercest examinations the tournament can offer with a stirring 10-man 3-2 victory over co-hosts Mexico.
They overcame the altitude, silenced a crowd that seemed to shake the stadium's concrete foundations, and ended Mexico's aura of invincibility at a fortress where defeats have been almost unheard of for decades.
And when the game descended into chaos, they found another way to win.
Reduced to 10 men with the Azteca crowd sensing blood, England were forced into a desperate rearguard action. Mexico attacked in waves, laying siege to the England goal.
But every player in white dug in, chased, blocked and battled for their lives.
Bellingham was the symbol of England's grit. Already the architect of victory with two goals, he lunged to clear what seemed a certain Mexican goal off the line late in the first half.
Kane supplied the composure from the penalty spot. Declan Rice walked a disciplinary tightrope for most of the match on a yellow card, while goalkeeper Jordan Pickford delivered one of the finest performances of his England career, producing a series of outstanding saves.
"I can't put it into words right now ... the goals, the penalty against, the penalty for, the red card," Bellingham said. "It was a chaotic game.
"It felt like a full squad performance. It felt like we had 26 players. Every time we cleared the ball, when big Dan Burn (a late substitute), smashed his head off one and cleared it up the pitch, you could see all the subs on the sideline up, all the staff, the fans got behind us in the stadium."
The scale of the challenge should not be underestimated.
High altitude test
Winning a World Cup knockout match against a Mexico side who had won all four of their games without conceding a goal was daunting enough. Doing it a lung-busting 2,200 metres above sea level, against a team backed by one of the most intimidating crowds in football, made the task exponentially harder.
Since opening in 1966, the Azteca had witnessed only two Mexican defeats in 89 senior competitive internationals.
Opponents have long wilted under the weight of history, noise and expectation but England did not. They became the first team to hand Mexico a World Cup defeat at the Azteca, surviving 11 agonising minutes of stoppage time that would have broken many lesser sides.
By the final whistle, this felt like more than a place in the quarter-finals. It felt like the kind of victory that convinces a team they can win the whole thing.
"It's what I always tell you, this team ... they really mean it. When the going gets tough, they never give up, they never lose belief," England manager Thomas Tuchel said. "It was one step more."
When the 100-plus minutes of intensity, anxiety and survival were finally over, England supporters who had been drowned out for long stretches by the sea of red and green, crowded down near the pitch to belt out Oasis's "Wonderwall" with the England players who stood arm-in-arm.
The song turned the stadium that had been overwhelmingly Mexican into a celebration of English defiance.
England next face Norway in the quarter-finals in Miami on Saturday.
"Norway," pondered Tuchel. "We need to take this in. This is Azteca, it's Mexico. It's a crazy, crazy game. We left everything out there, every single one of us. So, they need to take this in and now it's full steam ahead."
