Honourable mentions Argentina 2 Mexico 1 First cracks to appear in Argentina's make-up. Mexico fought like demons but were undone by a wonder strike from Maxi Rodriguez in extra time.

Australia 2 Croatia 2 Goals, red cards, yellow cards (how many, Graham? ), a killer free-kick, a goalkeeping howler and a salivating crowd. What more could you want?

WORST GAME England 1 Ecuador 0 Root canal on a football pitch.

Easy as it is to blame England, there was the pair of them in it. Ecuador contributed nothing other than the embarrassment of a queue outside the England dressing room afterwards looking for shirts. No invention from either side, no ball retention, no thought other than to keep the ball going forward at all coasts. Settled by a David Beckham free that a better-positioned goalkeeper would have saved.

Dishonourable mentions Switzerland 0 Ukraine 0 (Ukraine won 3-0 on penalties) Just like watching Italia '90 Ireland. Ukraine made a few shapes at trying to win it in the second half which was more than could be said for the Swiss.

Portugal 1 Angola 0 Neither side could hide their opening night nerves. Portugal looked uninterested and Angola were strangely insipid given their former colony status.

BEST GOAL Esteban Cambiasso (Argentina v Serbia and Montenegro) No contest. A spellbinding example of the heights the sport is capable of reaching.

What was most striking was the simplicity brought about by the movement of the players. Only the last of the 24 passes . . . Hernan Crespo's back-heel to Cambiasso . . .

could possibly be termed frilly. Short, snappy passes facilitated by darting, clever runs. Best World Cup goal for 20 years.

Honourable mentions Maxi Rodriguez (Argentina v Mexico) The chest control didn't just kill the ball but also moved it into position for a strike. And what a strike. Left-foot volley that brought the house down.

Joe Cole (England v Sweden) Not quite as good as Rodriguez as he wasn't under the same pressure from a marker but the control and technique were flawless, as was the quick thinking in spotting Andreas Isaksson off his line.

WORST GOAL CONCEDED Henrik Larsson (Sweden v England) Blind panic as Sweden launched one last attack, hoisting a long throw into the box. The ball bounced twice as both John Terry and Sol Campbell somehow contrived to get out of the way of it, leaving Larsson to get a faint touch on it and divert it past Paul Robinson. Woeful stuff.

Dishonourable mentions Vincenzo Iaquinta (Italy v Ghana) Ghana were still in it when Sammy Kuffour played a terrible back-pass too short by far and Iaquinta nipped in to seal a 2-0 win. It was Kuffour's last touch of the tournament.

Ji Sung-Park (South Korea v France) Back when France were useless, a Seol Ki-Hyeon cross sat in front of Fabien Barthez, Lilian Thuram and William Gallas four yards out and when they left it to each other, Park nipped in.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN LOSING SIDE Dwight Yorke (Trinidad and Tobago v England) The Fifa star-gazers gave David Beckham Man of the Match in this one but his old Manchester United teammate was the one who deserved it. Put in more tackles . . . and more successful ones . . . than anyone else on the pitch and covered more acres than someone of his years and supposed attitude problem could have been expected to.

Honourable mentions Rafael Marquez (Mexico v Argentina) Barnstorming night's work in Leipzig, including an early goal and stout defence thereafter. No disgrace in being beaten by a goal of the quality of Maxi Rodriguez's.

Andreas Isaksson (Sweden v Germany) Kept Germany down to a 2-0 win in the second round with a string of fingertip saves.

Let down badly by those in front of him.

WORST PERFORMANCE IN WINNING SIDE Ronaldo (Brazil v Croatia) A lumbering, dithering shell of a performance in a game Brazil really should have lost.

Out of sorts and overweight, he fell into the horrible trap of looking like he wasn't trying one minute and trying too hard the next. Shot on sight at every turn, seemingly for fear he'd make a mess of possession.

Dishonourable mentions Frank Lampard (England v Ecuador) You could pick out any of his performances but this wins out for the wildness of shooting alone. The miss after Wayne Rooney brilliantly set him up in the second half was the nadir of a rotten tournament.

Luca Toni (Italy v Germany) Never got to the pitch of the game at all and wasn't on Francesco Totti's wavelength at any stage. Might have cost him his place in the final.

BEST SURPRISE Zinedine Zidane going out in style Even if tonight doesn't go as he'd like it to, his reputation is forever secure. Watching him against Spain and especially Brazil was a treat most of us were resigned to never seeing again.

Honourable mentions Ghana Never stopped, even after the disappointment of losing to Italy when they were pretty much equal over the course of the game. Deservedly beat the Czechs and Americans.

Expect to see a few of them in the Premiership before long.

Germany Hands up here, we'd written them off. Miroslav Klose and Podolski were ever enterprising and Lahm and Jens Lehmann did their bit as well.

Ireland will do well to take a point from either game in qualifying for Euro 2008.

WORST DISAPPOINTMENT England Predictable and all as it was that they'd go out to the first decent team they encountered, their games were still a torture. Drearily out of place at a World Cup where technique and possession retention were the watchwords.

Dishonourable mentions The diving With a quarter of the knockout games alone hinging on dubiously won free-kicks and penalties, the game's most distasteful practice lives on.

Ronaldinho Suffered in a Brazil side that left no mark at all on the tournament. Assuming he goes on until the next one (and he'll only be 30 then), he'll need to dominate it to join the ranks of Pele, Maradona and, now, Zidane.