Time for the World Cup to catch fire

So we're through the Groups and into the knock-out rounds.

England, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Russia have all gone home with heads bowed, leaving the likes of Greece, Ivory Coast, USA and Algeria to battle it out for a place in the quarter-finals.

We've had 48 games (two-thirds of the total) with 136 goals at an average of 2.833 goals per game. There have been some good games, but some duffers too. It's not quite the mesmeric World Cup the TV pundits would like us to believe.

The next round has thrown up some interesting games, and some not so interesting.

Brazil v Chile will be fascinating as Chile have caught people's imagination. Colombia v Uruguay will set up and all-South American quarter final. Uruguay, feeling sorry for themselves after the Suarez affair, are unlikely to spring a surprise.

France and Germany both face African opposition (Nigeria and Algeria respectively) and will hope to set up a European quarter final. Algeria - who beat West Germany 2-1 in 1982 - will be hoping for revenge after they were knocked out in that tournament thanks to a cooked-up 1-0 win for West Germany over Austria which put them both through at Algeria's expense.

Belgium haven't quite hit their sweet spot, but three wins from three have given them a match against USA, followed by Argentina or Switzerland.

Let's hope the blue touch paper catches and we're not left with a round of nil-nil draws and penalty shoot-outs.