The holders stubbornly refused to relinquish their European crown with a hugely flawed yet gloriously chaotic quarter-final triumph
The Letzigrund looks gorgeous under a pale pastel evening sun. The noise washes over the athletic track where Carl Lewis and Asafa Powell once broke the world record, and where Sweden are now flying out of the blocks and leaving England trailing in their dust.
We do not yet know that in many ways this is simply the prologue, that this devastating early two-goal flurry is actually relatively benign in comparison with the carnage that will follow.
