India, July 5 -- In the early hours of Monday, Thomas Tuchel's England will walk out of a tunnel in southern Mexico City, past a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, and onto a pitch sunk into an old lava field 2,240 metres above sea level. Waiting for them will be a stadium that has not seen its hosts lose since 2013, a crowd believed capable of generating an artificial tremor, and the accumulated weight of a World Cup quarter-final etched in England's history.

Estadio Azteca does not merely host football matches, it appears to curate them. This is where Brazilian legend Pele won his third world cup, where Argentina's Diego Maradona produced both a piece of outrageous cheating and the most celebrated goal in the sport's history, and where...