After one round of games, the 2018 World Cup is ... actually wonderful?

So, round one was pretty fun, yeah? No rubbish games at all. Well, except for Sweden against South Korea. That was pretty dreadful. And Serbia-Costa Rica was a little bland. Oh, and Morocco against Iran was a little frustrating. Right. That it?

Somewhere between one and three rubbish games! Hooray!

That’s not bad going. We haven’t had quite the unhinged gamebreaking results of 2014 — the harrowing of Spain, the shredding of Portugal — but we also haven’t had the two hours of tedious purgatory that was Iran and Nigeria, 0-0, in 2014. Even Serbia managed a sweet free-kick. And Spain’s six-goal draw with Cristiano Ronaldo has instantly smashed its way into the pantheon of great and ridiculous World Cup games.

Point of fact, we haven’t had a single 0-0 draw so far in this World Cup. This isn’t just unusual, having last happened in 2002; it’s also extremely helpful. The nil-nil is, in a sense, football’s signature result, since it’s the chosen target for everybody who likes to spend their time pretending that football is boring. No goals! What even is the point? Well, future friends and converts, Aleksandr Kolarov curling one into the top corner is the point. Look how happy he was.

Beyond the total absence of goalless games, there have been a couple of other encouraging trends. Own goals are objectively the best things that can happen on a football field, and the record for a single World Cup is six, in France 1998. We’ve had five so far. This is going to be historic.

More generally, there has been an encouragingly level playing field. Most of the big teams have come in slightly cold, and many of the rest have stepped up to make life awkward. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, who were a foolish combination of bad and overambitious, nobody’s been truly awful. The next biggest losers were Panama, and they managed an hour’s decent scrapping before Belgium eventually wore them down.

You know a World Cup’s started well when the teams you’re enjoying, and that you want to see play again, aren’t the ones that will eventually go on and win the thing. And that’s exactly where we are: waiting to hear more from Mexico and Senegal, hoping that Peru and Morocco can convert good shapes into goals, trying to work out if Colombia can overcome that self-inflicted rake to the face.

Even England have stepped up. What blessed relief it is to be wondering if England can learn to take their chances, rather than wondering if England can create any chances.

Ultimately, the job of the first round is to set up the second. And as we head into the next set of games, the competition is looking enticingly open. It is quivering with potential. Some of the best players in the world are going to step up. They’re going to have to. Or they are going to find themselves humbled by players on mere fractions of their wages.

Also, if we carry on the way we’ve been going, then there’s a good chance that Ronaldo will be beaten to the golden boot by Own Goal. Give us that, oh mighty football. We’ve been good all year. We deserve it.