A captain often accused of shrinking in the biggest moments for his country produced two goals when a nation was staring at humiliation, dragging England to a 2-1 win over DR Congo and into the last 16 for a third tournament running.
Cipenga's goal, DR Congo's quickest of the tournament at six and a half minutes, was the kind that lingers on a manager's mind. Djed Spence followed one runner across the far post and left another entirely alone - no thanks to the poor defensive positioning of Ezre Konsa and Marc Guehi - and a side ranked 46th in the world had the lead against one of the favourites.
Opta noted its weight afterwards: not since the 1966 final, a run of 13 matches, had England won a World Cup game after conceding first. The record fell here, though for a good 80 minutes, nothing about the manner of it felt much like progress.
Not the expected low block
Much of the pre-match analysis had DR Congo pencilled in as a low block, content to defend and hope - but the African side ignored the script. They pressed high and countered with real menace, and Yoane Wissa should have doubled the lead before turning Aaron Wan-Bissaka's cross onto the outside of the post.
There was needle in the personnel, too. West Ham's Wan-Bissaka and Burnley's Axel Tuanzebe, both schooled in England's youth setup, spent the afternoon dismantling the country that once developed them, which lent the tie a subplot no amount of possession could soften.
England's improvement, when it arrived, tracked the hydration breaks with an almost comic precision. Before the equaliser, Opta had them without a single shot or touch inside the DR Congo box; after it, they gradually took control, up to 70 per cent of the ball by the half-hour break, and 77 per cent through the closing quarter after the second.
Both manager and captain landed on the same turning point unprompted in their post-match interviews with the BBC, with Kane noting that "after that first break we were much better," and Tuchel adding "after the first water break, we were on top of the game."
Whether that reflects Tuchel's words in those pauses or simply quality reasserting itself is open to debate, but a team that has stalled repeatedly this summer at least showed it could restart.
But the problem was never having the ball; it was what they did with it: 16 shots, their lowest total in any game this tournament, and 23 crosses, 10 of them from Madueke, and most of which found only Congolese heads.
Behind the misfiring attack, the reassurance came from odd places, Marc Guehi and Ezri Konsa passing at 100 per cent through the opening hour despite looking positionally all over the place whenever DR Congo launched forward.
Rice at right-back
Rice, shifted to right-back to paper over a genuine selection headache, was the game's quiet success, his positional sense keeping England out of trouble until cramp forced him off and Stones took the same role.
Asked to play the position straight rather than invert into midfield after Spence was taken off, he gave England security down a flank DR Congo kept probing, his reading of the counter snuffing out breaks before they became chances, and he held the role until his late substitution.
He shared the day's top Flashscore rating of 8.4 with Kane, which for an improvised full-back for much of the second half says plenty.
Bellingham offered less on the ratings sheet but was the only genuine threat of a wretched first half, drifting off the front line to find pockets between the Congolese lines. His 30th-minute header, meeting a cross the rest of the side had failed to threaten from, doubled as England's first attempt of the match and, per Opta, their longest wait for a shot in a World Cup game since - you guessed it - 1966.
And then, standing in the way for 74 minutes was Lionel Mpasi.
His five saves, several of them excellent, earned a 7.3 that flatters the scoreline more than the performance, and for over an hour he was the only reason England's 2.04 xG (against 0.8 for DR Congo) translated into nothing. Favourites held out this long usually get charged with profligacy, but we must also tip our caps to a goalkeeper who played the game of his life, something shared by his opponents: "The guy was incredible, the kind of saves he was making," said Tuchel, who could afford to be generous.
Captain Kane steals it
The man who finally beat him was the one England needed and, on recent form, the one they could not be sure would arrive. Kane's tournaments have long carried a whisper that he saves his quiet nights for the biggest occasions, and with an hour gone and DR Congo ahead, the whisper was growing louder.
Then Gordon's cross found him for a downward header on 74 minutes, and four minutes from time the same supplier teed up a second, lashed in with conviction.
In doing so, Kane took himself to five for the tournament and 13 across World Cup history, past Pele into the World Cup's all-time top six behind only Messi, Mbappe, Klose, Ronaldo and Muller, and just two shy of the last of those. His 8.4 headed the England ratings, deservedly. "We spoke about people having hero moments, and it can be anyone," Kane said. "It was me today."
The awkward truth sits alongside the celebration: both goals were made by a man Tuchel chose to leave out. Gordon reshaped the attack the moment he came on, finished with two assists and a 7.9, and now has three goal involvements off the bench this tournament.
Generously read, it speaks to depth and a manager unafraid to use it. Read more plainly, England's most dangerous attacking threats keep starting in bibs.
Mexican stand-off
Now comes Mexico at the Azteca, at altitude, backed by a crowd with no intention of being fair about it.
England go there with a captain finding form when it counts, a bench that keeps bailing them out and, for the first time in 60 years, evidence they can win from behind.
But they also go with a first-choice shape that took an hour to function and a defence that was repeatedly run out of any sense of shape.
Tuchel has four days to fix an attack that has now failed to score in the first half of three of four matches before facing a side capable of punishing it far more ruthlessly than DR Congo did in Atlanta.