World Cup comment: Late-comers arrive in style as gritty England climb their Everest
In the minutes when England finally arrived at this World Cup, you wondered if we were about to witness a performance that laid down a marker. We did, but not in the way we could have imagined then.
The first quarter – as FIFA have made it in their relentlessly shameful attempts to suck up to their American hosts – was nothing really worth staying up until one o'clock in the morning for, let alone two when the Mexican lightning relented.
England weathered the footballing storm, but it was the roll-your-sleeves up work you have to do when it feels like everything is against you. Nil-nil when the adverts started to roll – not in this country, thank goodness – was a job well done.
But the moment in the 36th minute was something else.
Declan Rice – understandably subdued after seemingly covering every blade of every Premier League pitch and a few foreign fields too leading Arsenal to a first title and European Cup final in two decades – found something extra to carry the ball deep into Mexico’s half.
Bukayo Saka, fighting his body even more after coming through the same domestic battles, produced the sort of cross we have not seen anything like enough of from England's wide players in this tournament.
Jude Bellingham did what he does in big England games. He had not been an area of concern.
Nor has Harry Kane, driven on by the best golden boot race in World Cup history but unlike some of his rivals team-minded enough to pick out a team-mate in a better position. When he did that 98 seconds later, Bellingham made it 2-0.
Throw in Anthony Gordon continuing his good work of the Congo game where for the first time in this competition he looked like the player Barcelona broke the bank for, and Jordan Pickford pulling off a couple of magnificent saves to make up for the one he let through in the last 32, and this looked like England finally coming to the boil after a tepid start to this World Cup.
But in its most convoluted edition ever being brilliant in the group stage is wasted energy. Ask Mexico.
And if at 2-0 up after 38 minutes anyone convinced themselves England were going to do it easily, their sleep-deprived brains were playing cruel tricks on them.
If you had told them five minutes earlier this was going to be a stroll, they would have laughed at you.
Not against Mexico in the Azteca Stadium where they had only lost two competitive games in their history, none in the World Cup.
Not playing at 7,000 feet of altitude without enough time for their bodies to adjust.
Not with the disrespectful disruption of FIFA hokey-cokeying with the kick-off time, or the lightning strikes which meant that instead of being six hours earlier, it ended up being 60 minutes late.
And not against the only team in the tournament to have won every game thus far without conceding.
England took all that and built this game up into their Mount Everest with the belief it would bring the best out of them. It did.
You can take big Bellingham goals for granted, but not what he did at the end of the first half to stop Cesar Montes scoring for what looked all the world like it would be the equaliser after Julian Quinones's strike.
If flowing football is what people pay big money – extortionate money for those who have travelled to North America – to see, it is a team giving everything for the Three Lions which invokes most pride.
Having started the second half very positively, England handicapped themselves still further.
Jarell Quansah would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky video assistant referees, but deserved to be sent off for planting his studs so high on Jesus Gallardo's leg. It left England to play 48 minutes, as it turned out, a man short.
A penalty won by Gordon and coolly converted by Kane, whose spooned spot kick in Qatar brought England's last World Cup to a sorry end, let us not forget, only set up the defence-versus-attack contest that was already inevitable even more beautifully.
VAR struck again in the 69th minute but again got the right decision as Kane kicked through Brian Gutierrez. Raul Jimenez pulled a goal back from the spot.
Manager Thomas Tuchel's substitutions have been excellent in this tournament – much better than his pre-match selections – and his substitutes were outstanding in Mexico.
John Stones showed why his manager values him so highly, but everyone who took to the field for England was brilliant.
Through cussedness as much as quality, they got the job done. A quarter-final awaits.
The hurdles keep coming. Jordan Henderson badly injuring his wrist celebrating somehow felt appropriate. Quansah's ban means yet again England have a right-back problem.
But they – and everyone who pulled an all-nighter – has until Saturday to recover.
Then England face a Norway team of monsters, none more so than Erling Haaland. But they do not have a Vinicius Junior, and physical battles are what Tuchel's squad is built for.
England are better than Norway. Talent, though, is only part of it. In Mexico they showed the other side.
It would be a terrible shame to let such a great night's work go to waste in Boston. Roll on Saturday.