James Lawton: Tournament takes flight with Fatherland's eagles

Yes, it's true, the Netherlands essentially fashioned a riot, were peevish and mean where their great predecessors generally behaved like a mutinous crew even while playing football of spell-binding quality, the Italians pulled a Machiavellian move dark even by their own standards, and Thierry Henry besmirched the night when France reminded themselves they were once the best in Europe and the world.

Yet there is still a way to measure the enduring quality of this 18th World Cup which persuaded some of us even before the opening action that it had the potential to rise above anything we had seen since Diego Maradona 20 years ago invaded Mexico with as much single-minded purpose as any conquistador.

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The litmus test is to ask yourself to whom you would now most willingly say goodbye when the quarter-finals are over.

Now no doubt the question is most challenging for those who remain loyal to either England or Ukraine. These certainly are the teams who have arrived at this point trailing least glory. Though Ukraine fought hard after being dismantled by Spain in the opening game, their round-of-16 match with Switzerland brought new nuances of tedium. That the Swiss lacked the poise to convert a single shoot-out penalty made its own bleak commentary on all that had gone on before, but then when you think of the convulsions that have shook their country in recent years you are bound to give at least a little sigh when the Ukrainians succumb, as they surely will, to the machinations and brilliant defence of Italy, in this department way out in front of all their tournament rivals. But then Ukraine do have impressive spirit - and Andrei Shevchenko.

So far England have played just one half of reasonably coherent football. Their squad selection is increasingly a bad joke. Their tactical pattern is unfathomable. But then how do you easily say farewell to players of the quality of Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, the currently demoralised Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole, who has performed the formidable trick of playing himself into form under the greatest pressure any professional footballer can experience?

Rooney would be the most killing loss. Even as he fights for fitness, and operates in a team that sometimes suggest they have been told to go out to play a version of blind man's bluff, he carries the most extraordinary promise every time he touches the ball. It is the blinding hint that, for all his difficulties, including thus far a lack of intelligent service, he is capable of anything.

But then here we are still talking about possibilities. In Berlin tomorrow the choice is between two sets of already formidable achievement.

Germany have grown before our eyes, especially the striking pair of Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski. Not so long ago, when it was still fashionable to disparage Jürgen Klinsmann's team, the front two were sometimes sneered at as scurrying, "Polish rats". Now everyone agrees they are authentic eagles of the Fatherland. The consensus was reached, thunderously, when they combined to destroy Sweden in just a few minutes the other day. Klose is the craftsman, a pro to his toes. Podolski is the young runner, hugely emboldened by the idea that he is halfway to being a national hero of the ages.

It is cruel that Germany may be denied the chance to discover destiny's hand on the last day of the tournament. However, if they are to fall in crushing anti-climax in Berlin's magnificently renovated Olympic stadium tomorrow, no one has a better right to administer their fate than Argentina. Germany have hosted the World Cup brilliantly, but it is Argentina who have furnished it with the most extravagant skill.

Though it is bewildering to note the reluctance of the Argentina coach, Jose Pekerman, to give the breathtaking Lionel Messi more than cameo roles, and even that some say it is a straight choice between the playmaker Juan Roman Riquelme and arguably the most arresting pure attacker since the days of George Best, there is no way to minimise the impact of Argentina.

Then, hauntingly, there are Brazil and France, a replay of the 1998 final and the possibility that, second time around, we could have the sublime duel that dwindled the moment we heard at the Stade de France that the young Ronaldo was suffering something close to a nervous breakdown. It turned out to be Zinedine Zidane's day and it is beguiling to think that, eight years on, it could be his again.

In France's opening game against Switzerland, a low key goalless draw, some said they had seen Zidane's officially assumed status as a football relic.

They said it was tragic to see him struggling through the motions. Not everyone agreed, and for those who said so, who saw in his work traces of the old brilliance, and a genuine attempt to impose himself on the action, there was a beautiful satisfaction when he allied himself so skilfully with the thrusting young French idol Franck Ribéry in what some saw as the shocking defeat of Spain.

Spain had encouraged our hopes, but they tend to do that every four years. In the end the Spanish fault line was plain enough. Their defence was too deeply flawed to maintain an authentic challenge.

Brazil? They were the sleeping representatives of football genius in the early going. Now they are at least half-awake and Ronaldo is as near to being half fit as he is ever again likely to be. However, as a predator he is proving that, as in boxing, it is a true striker's "shot" that is last to go. Ronaldinho is also at last stirring to his responsibilities as the world's most talented footballer. Those who have backed Brazil, as a recurring romantic gesture, have no reason yet to panic.

When you mark down the names of the survivors you are drawing a plan of wall-to-wall intrigue. Four years ago the last eight included teams like Turkey, the United States, Senegal and South Korea. Even allowing for some brilliant coaching, it was not a roll call of football excellence. It is different now.

Here, without doubt, are still the makings of a truly great World Cup.

Class of 2006: The quarter-finalists since 1966

1966 England, Argentina, West Germany, Uruguay, Portugal, North Korea, Soviet Union, Hungary

1970 Uruguay, Soviet Union, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, West Germany, England

1974 Netherlands, Brazil, East Germany, Argentina, West Germany, Poland, Sweden Yugoslavia

1978 Argentina, Brazil, Netherlands, Poland, Peru, Italy, West Germany, Austria

1982 (12 teams, in four groups, played two matches each to decide semi-finalists) Italy, West Germany, Poland, Soviet Union, Belgium, England, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, France, Austria, Northern Ireland

1986 Brazil, France, West Germany, Mexico, Argentina, England, Belgium, Spain

1990 Czechoslovakia, England, West Germany, Republic of Ireland, Cameroon, Italy, Argentina, Yugoslavia

1994 Sweden, Bulgaria, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Romania, Netherlands

1998 France, Croatia, Argentina, Brazil, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Denmark

2002 South Korea, Brazil, Germany, Spain, England, United States, Turkey, Senegal

2006 England, Portugal, Italy, Ukraine, Brazil, France, Germany, Argentina