For the first time since Diego Maradona's Argentina knocked them out of the 1986 World Cup, England are set to walk back into the Estadio Azteca — a stadium that has witnessed more defining moments in football history than almost any other venue on earth.

A stadium built to swallow crowds whole

Perched at over 2,200 metres above sea level in the south of Mexico City, the Azteca was conceived to be an architectural event as much as a sporting one. Architect Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, commissioned to build a venue capable of welcoming more than 100,000 supporters, took direct aim at Rio de Janeiro's Maracana as his benchmark.

His solution was a cantilevered roof with no supporting columns — an engineering feat that required the removal of 180 million kilos of rock from the ground beneath the site. The design ensured that every spectator, from the front row to the highest tier, would share an unobstructed, equally immersive view of the pitch.