Ah, so beautiful, so charming; it enriched everyone's lives. Only gradually did we realise we had a little monster on our hands, spitting, snarling and retching, like the child in The Exorcist.

The Devil has done his worst, in this the most inauspicious of weeks during the current World Cup, indeed any World Cup for many a year.

It was as if someone had stepped out to enjoy the glamourous experience of shopping on Fifth Avenue only to find themselves being robbed in the shadows of Central Park. The mood darkened considerably once business became serious; once the most powerful teams, the most celebrated players, and the most lauded coaches were placed under unrelenting pressure, in the knock-out stage, to justify their frequently banal and empty declarations that destiny was theirs, and never mind the means.

This is a "A Time to Make Friends" according to that ubiquitous and fatuous Fifa slogan. They may as well have been absolutely candid and included the addendum:

". . . so that you can steal their wallets". This is the World Cup in which, on the field, cheats have prospered as readily as perpetrators of the three-card trick. But more of Graham Poll later.

Italy progressed to their quarter-final purely because the Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantelejo was mugged by Fabio Grosso's shameless stumble over a prone Lucas Neill to elicit a match-winning, last minute penalty against Australia.

Grosso, indeed. With such acts, the tournament has been reduced to anarchy, some contend. That may be rather over-stating matters, though when even that normally eminently reasonable former Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson opines that it has been a World Cup "littered with cheats, cry-babies and drama queens" clearly something is seriously amiss.

Yet, until Spain and France . . . notwithstanding Thierry Henry's dubious contribution . . . and Brazil salvaged the tournament's reputation from a dark pool seething with malice, aforethought and fraudulent responses to the mildest of challenges, it was one that required viewing through fingers clasped over the eyes. (Or in the case of Switzerland-Ukraine matchsticks prising eyelids apart).

The prevailing mood of discontent has only been exacerbated by a Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, whose name is only one 't' too many and only one 'h' too short of a perfect description of his style. The consummate politician, who regards responsibility like a frisbee; one he can hurl as far as possible from his own door. His excoriation of officials, from the hapless, and now final-less Graham Poll (who brandished a total of three yellows to the Croatian Josip Simunic), to the Russian Valentin Ivanov (overoccupied arbiter of that breakout of hostilities between Holland and Portugal), has been inexcusable.

But then it is easy to condemn referees; and, certainly, those critics with that natural instinct in their psyche have feasted avariciously on a sizeable portion of ham-fistedness pie from the whistlers, who have been guilty of indulgence, overreaction, and an aptitude for being duped, in roughly equal measures.

After the round of 16 matches, we reflected on 272 cautions and 25 dismissals in a total of 56 matches. An unpalatable record, but one that was always somehow inevitable, given officials' pre-tournament instructions.

Their priority, they were told, must be consistency of decisions, enforcing their authority and doing everything to protect the players, and therefore the standard and quality of the play. Particular targets were: elbowing, simulation, time-wasting, and bad tackling.

Who would argue with that advocacy? Yet, as we have observed in the Pemiership, it is not always so straightforward to carry out such edicts in practice, with the eyes of the world lazered into your back. There is always that clash with "common sense" and handling each incident on its merits, and until the players accept a significant responsibility in all this, no number of Fifa initiatives will address the issue satisfactorily. (That player responsibility reached a new low in the pathetic scuffles following Germany's win over Argentina on penalities. ) Franz Beckenbauer, president of the German World Cup organising committee, got it about right when he declared: "What the players are doing is so exaggerated, they are making life harder for the referees all the time.

But at the same time the referees are often too quick to whistle."

It is difficult to say which is most offensive to the eye; a heinous challenge, like that of Holland's Khalid Boulahrouz, whose studs did fearful work on Cristiano Ronaldo's thigh, or Grosso's trampling over not just Neill but all our sensibilities. Probably the latter, because that involves an intent to deceive the official.

'Simulation', that polite euphemism for cheating, has progressed from a minor outbreak to an epidemic during this week's action.

In that respect, even Henry has offered cause for complaint after clutching his head following a collision of bodies with Spain's Puyol.

Still, perhaps the Frenchman should be allowed an overdraft? Surely, he has too much credit in the Bank of Decency to receive a visit from the over-vengeful bailiffs of fair play.

Yet, despite those concerns, with a week remaining, much of the football played, when it has been allowed to flow without interruption, has been laudable. After the departure of the shirt-swappers -- for whom an illustrious opponents' sweat-stained top was the beginning and end of their ambitions -- we are left primarily with the perennial scene-stealers of World Cup celluloid since it all began in 1938. That was what the Cecil B de Milles of world football and their sponsors demand and, in truth, isn't that what we, the observers, relish too?

Four years ago, the USA, Turkey, South Korea and Senegal were there in the last eight. This time, it has been survival of the classiest.

By the end of the round of 16, still standing, by and large, were most of the names we would have forecast . . . excepting Holland and Spain.

As the end of summer camp approaches, there have been some emotional and tough farewells already. Not least to Ruud van Nistelrooy, and his fellow orange van men, of whom so many of us anticipated if not "total football", at least total dedication to reclaiming a proud status in world football. They began in earnest, but there was never a follow-through from performers, of whom doubts regarding their character persisted from the start.

But what of van Nistelrooy now? Spurned not just by his club manager but by his international leader, who claimed he had "not been good", the Manchester United forward, not deployed in the defeat by Portugal, could just be gaining a complex. It appeared a bizarre decision by van Basten. Yet, can he and Alex Ferguson be wrong?

Meanwhile Spain, who began in snorting splendour in the ring, and with teenage Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas, Liverpool's Xabi Alonso, together with Fernando Torres and David Villa, determined to confirm to the world their burgeoning quality, were undone by a single lance, an equaliser just before half-time against France. It was a wound from which they were to never recover and, by the conclusion, the life force was drained from them. A weak heart? Maybe so. Once more. The facts speak eloquently. Spain, such a repository of footballing prowess at club level, have still failed to reach the quarter-finals since 1950.

This morning, the countdown towards Berlin proceeds. One can only hope that football's child of 2006 has been purged of its wicked ways.