The Black Stars carry Africa's hopes as the World Cup's powerhouses gather their stride towards the final

Asamoah Gyan and Kevin-Prince Boateng have proved themselves as energetic and effective performers at this World Cup.

This World Cup is heading towards the hallucinatory opera of Diego Maradona becoming the Franz Beckenbauer of the rehab age. There could be no more uproarious outcome than El Diego emulating Der Kaiser by adding a World Cup won as a coach to the one he landed as a player.

To predict that melodramatic ending when Maradona was going through the Argentinian phone book to try dozens of players in qualifying would have invited ridicule but his team's progress has been so serene that purists are dreaming of an Argentina v Brazil final at Soccer City on Sunday week. This would pit the bad overcoats and regimentation of Dunga against the cigar smoke and volatility of a rival who was the Brazil coach's antithesis as a player.

But first the quarter-finals serve up a scenario that would add much greater resonance than a mere touchline cabaret to Africa's first World Cup. It falls to Ghana, against Uruguay, to become the first country from the host continent to reach a World Cup semi-final – this after Africa's other five representatives went out at the group stage; Nigeria so spectacularly that the country's president has ordered them to withdraw from international competition for two years – an idea that appeals some days with England.

To achieve a great leap forward for African football was surely one of the purposes of South Africa's willingness to take on huge construction and maintenance costs. Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal eight years ago are the only nations from this part of the globe to have reached the last eight, so Ghana can feel history's hand on their Jabulani as they confront one of South America's four quarter-finalists. "We're going for the Cup. We're the only team in Africa left in the competition so the whole continent is behind us," says Ghana's Jonathan Mensah, who is denied by suspension the chance to face the super-potent Uruguayan strike-force of Diego Forlán and Luis Suárez.

Ghana, who are without their idol, Michael Essien, are being encouraged here near Rustenburg to rename themselves the 'Black Stars of Africa'. With a squad that draws from Wigan Athletic, Fulham and Portsmouth (as well as the Ghanaian clubs Liberty, Heart of Lions and Bechem Chelsea) they could be deemed an alternative Premier League outfit: a mid-table indictment of England's "tiredness". One of Ghana's most industrious and enthusiastic workers is Kevin–Prince Boateng, who endured a gruelling relegation struggle at Pompey and played in the FA Cup final yet charges about free of weariness.

A World Cup in which esprit de corps lost its power to overcome grander reputations would not be worth staging. Nor would it be much fun if aspiring individuals were denied the chance to upstage the Champions League aristocracy. Anticipation has not been blunted by the relative anonymity of the toffs. Wayne Rooney was a spectre of his rampaging self, Cristiano Ronaldo lacked razzle-dazzle, Kaká keeps getting picked on by referees, Fernando Torres is the Spanish Rooney and even Lionel Messi has yet to decorate his brilliant approach play with goals.

David Villa is acknowledged as goalscoring nobility only by those who look, in Spanish football, beyond Barcelona and Real Madrid. That problem has been solved by Villa's move to the Camp Nou and here he is the joint-leading scorer with four, along with Argentina's Gonzalo Higuaín. Below these Germany's Thomas Müller has scratched his name on English hearts, Suárez has affirmed his ability to score outside the Dutch league and Luís Fabiano is doing what Dunga brought him here for: to finish off Brazil's rapier counter-strikes.

For the 2006 finalists (France and Italy) to be eliminated at the group stage points not only to a French talent for mutiny but the inability of Italy – and England – to move with the times. While England deployed a style that was reminiscent of table football – wooden and set out in unbending lines – Italy endure the same drop-off in young talent that prompted Fabio Capello to bring the country's all-time oldest World Cup squad.

These quarter-finals are rewarding countries that have pursued a more fluid and adventurous way of playing. Even Brazil, in front of their six-man defensive shield, have been dazzling in bursts because Dunga has worked out that creativity and flashing speed are best deployed from a strong defensive base. He also purged the dilettantes, Ronaldinho and Adriano. Robinho, who might as well have taken a book on to the pitch in some of his outings for Manchester City, looks as if he is having a religious experience every time he wears a Brazil shirt.

Holland, Brazil's opponents in Port Elizabeth, have constrained their most romantic urges with a lock-tight defence and what Arjen Robben calls an "efficient" style. No one in the Netherlands appears to mind this deviation from the pretty, fragile norm. Robinho calls the Brazil v Holland match-up a "world football classic" which is equally true of Argentina v Germany in Cape Town, a game with plenty of latent tension from the grudge match of 2006. Even the most rabid Englishman would lift a glass to Germany's Miroslav Klose as he collects his 100th cap six days after scoring his 50th international goal with a macho hand-off of England's Matthew Upson.

After the first round of games some said this was a dull World Cup. Sparks can fly from the feet of at least five of these quarter-finalists and Ghana are on a mission far grander than Maradona's urge to prove he is no clown.