In fact, the eight games so far have yielded the lowest net-rippling return ever at this stage of the tournament, with just 13 goals scored - four of which arrived in Germany's 4-0 thumping of Australia tonight.

The total figure undercuts the tally of 16 seen in the early exchanges of both the 1962 and 1974 World Cups, which went on to produce meagre returns of, respectively, 2.75 and 2.55 goals per game.

The evolving number of teams and games involved makes direct comparisons more complicated - 1990's 117 goals, for example, represents a far lower-scoring tournament that 1962, when the 88 goals eventually scored came in 32 games rather than 52.

Even the Italian-staged event had seen 21 goals in the first eight games, though that figure was boosted by Czechoslovakia's 5-1 win over the United States and West Germany's 4-1 rout of Yugoslavia.

The Jabulani ball was hyped up as a goalkeeper's nightmare, with a storm of goals forecast, but despite howlers from England'sRobert Green and Algeria'sFaouzi Chaouchi it has failed to materialise.

Siphiwe Tshabalala's stunner in the hosts' excellent opening draw with Mexico hinted at great things to come, but so far Germany and South Korea are the only team to score more than once and seven of the 18 teams have failed to trouble the scorers.

The ratio of 1.62 goals per game is far in arrears of Italia 90's low water mark of 2.25 over the tournament, though recent renewals have tended towards that scarcity of goals.

The three tournaments in the current 32-team format have seen 171 goals in 1998, 161 four years later and 147 - the equivalent of 2.3 in each of the 64 games - last time out in Germany.

The most goal-happy staging of the tournament by a distance, though, was in Switzerland in 1954, when 142 goals were racked up in the space of only 26 games - virtually five-and-a-half goals per game.

Notable results included the hosts' 7-5 defeat to rivals Austria, the highest-scoring World Cup finals match ever, while the five games in a stunning Group Two finished 4-1, 9-0, 8-3, 7-0 and 7-2.

What organisers in South Africa would give for such a buzz on the pitch to compete with that of the vuvuzelas.