John Carlin’s World Cup Blog: now for the real contest

Wayne Rooney and John Terry refused to be too upset by England's dire performance

Now that the wheat has been sorted out from the chaff - now that England, New Zealand, North Korea and so forth have gone home - the World Cup starts for real.

We haven’t seen much so far to make us imagine that South Africa 2010 will linger in the mind the way Mexico 1970, or Germany 1974, or Mexico 1986 or France 1998 did. But that might change now, with some delicious games potentially ahead.

A great World Cup?

What you need for a great World Cup is for one team to stand head and shoulders above the others, or for one player to blaze forth, as proponents of the beautiful game.

In Mexico 1970, it was Brazil who left their mark on the game forever; in Germany 1974, the revolutionary losing finalists, Clockwork Orange Holland; in Mexico 1986, Maradona stole the show; in France 1998, it was the French themselves (oh sad distant memory), but mostly Zidane.

Of the last eight here, we can forget about the two “ays”, Paraguay and Uruguay, who are rugged as all hell but, however far they might progress (and you never know with this infuriatingly democratic game), will never win the love of the multitudes.

African pride

Ghana have a lot of romantic value and, unless you are one of Uruguay’s 3.5 million inhabitants, you’ll be wanting them to make it to the semis. That would be great, salvaging as it would much African pride.

If they were to go ahead and win the whole damn thing, this truly would be a memorable World Cup, but not necessarily for footballing reasons.

Disappointing Dutch

As to the more serious contenders, Holland have disappointed. They were magnificent in the European championships until some weird loser gene in the Dutch footballing psyche saw them implode against Russia.

Now that they are less magnificent (save for Arjen Robben, the poor man’s Messi – which is saying quite a lot), you never know, there might be more grit about them. But hard to see them staving off the Brazilian tsunami that sunk Chile this week.

Anti-Brazil

Brazil are not Brazil any more. They’re a cross between Germany and Italy: all power and muscle, lethal in the break. Fascinating how Kaká, Robinho and Luis Fabiano, who were basically crap in the last European season, transform themselves like Clark Kent into Superman when they put on the canarinha cape.