“I can’t believe I’m missing this game,” Andy Murray grumbled. Murray is one of Britain’s greatest living athletes, a former World No 1, and yet he was discovering that while the life of a sporting icon has many predictable burdens, it has a few unpredictable ones too. What he really, really wanted to be doing was sitting in the players’ lounge watching one of the greatest games in World Cup 2018 history. What he was actually doing was sitting in a windowless press conference room at Wimbledon, answering yet more questions about his injured hip.

Outside the Kazan Arena shortly after the final whistle, Argentina fans were literally laid out flat on the ground: drained, traumatised, emptied. Many had travelled halfway across the world, spent fortunes they didn’t have, sold cars and televisions and items of furniture, slept on airport floors and park benches, all to be there. You hoped that they would take some sliver of consolation from the grand and wondrous spectacle they had just witnessed. But you doubted it.

Great World Cup games have an intense, centrifugal gravity that you don’t really get anywhere else in the game. The Champions League may have more of the best players and a higher overall standard, but it doesn’t get Reese Witherspoon tweeting about Kylian Mbappe from her Californian front room. Outside the spheres of politics, war and natural disaster, it’s hard to imagine another single event that means so much to so many people, that fixes so many eyes on the same spot. In a way, it’s futile trying to get your head around how big they are. All you can really do is take your seat, and hope that the match unfolding before you can remotely live up to the hype and heft surrounding it. Every so often, you get lucky.

France vs Argentina: Player ratings Show all 24 1 /24 France vs Argentina: Player ratings France vs Argentina: Player ratings France (BACK L to R) France's midfielder Paul Pogba, France's defender Samuel Umtiti, France's defender Lucas Hernandez, France's defender Raphael Varane, France's forward Olivier Giroud, France's goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, (FRONT L to R) France's forward Antoine Griezmann, France's midfielder Blaise Matuidi, France's midfielder N'Golo Kante, France's defender Benjamin Pavard and France's forward Kylian Mbappe pose before the Russia 2018 World Cup round of 16 football match between France and Argentina at the Kazan Arena in Kazan on June 30, 2018. (Photo by Luis Acosta / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - NO MOBILE PUSH ALERTS/DOWNLOADS (Photo credit should read LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Hugo Lloris - 6 out of 10 Could do nothing for Di Maria’s wonder goal, and a cruel deflection on Messi’s strike. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Benjamin Pavard - 8 At just 22, he showed plenty of experience and kept Di Maria quiet, for the goal Di Maria went into the middle, getting no joy from Pavard down the left. Scored a screamer to equalise, and brought France back into the match. FIFA via Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Raphael Varane - 7 Could do little for Di Maria’s individual goal, and played out well from the back. FIFA via Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Samuel Umtiti - 7 With only Messi to contend with in a false nine role in the first half, had little to do, with the only goal coming from range. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Lucas Hernandez - 6 Dealt well with most he encountered, but against an inform player could be a weakness in the quarter finals. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Paul Pogba - 8 After a slow start, he grew into the game and sprayed some wonderful passes out to Griezmann and Mbappe. Finally showed his massive potential. AFP/Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Ngolo Kante - 7 Calm and composed in possession, looks to have time on the ball even in a crowded midfield. Corbis via Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Blaise Matuidi - 8 His experience and reading of the game prevented Banega and Messi combining as they did against Nigeria, and he’ll be a big miss in the quarters after picking up his second yellow of the tournament. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Kylian Mbappe - 9 The star of the first half show, his pace and power earnt the penalty, and left Otamendi and Rojo in his wake, before adding two goals of his own. AFP/Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Olivier Giroud - 7 A quiet showing from the frontman. Struggled to connect with Griezmann, and inches away from connecting with a Pavard cross. Fought to the end and gave everything. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Antoine Griezmann - 8 Calm from the penalty spot for the opener and caused problems with his pace. Struggled to combine with Giroud with his final ball, but performed well overall. AFP/Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Argentina Getty France vs Argentina: Player ratings Franco Armani - 4 Committed too early for Griezmann’s penalty, rooted to the spot for his free kick that hit the bar, should’ve done better for Mbappe’s second. Adjudged to be the best of a poor three Argentinian goalkeepers – not on this showing. Sergei Savostyanov/TASS France vs Argentina: Player ratings Gabriel Mercado - 5 Lucky to escape a yellow card for a challenge on Kante, and one of many to look uncomfortable against French pace in attack, lost his discipline towards the end. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Nicolas Otamendi - 6 Dealt well with Giroud, but looked vulnerable with the pace and power of Mbappe and trickery of Griezmann. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Marcos Rojo - 4 From hero to villain, at fault for the French penalty, and looked out of his depth against the flying Frenchman Mbappe withdrawn at half-time. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Nicolas Tagliafico - 6 One of the better Argentinian defenders despite his inexperience, also tried to get forward wherever he could. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Cristian Pavon - 6 One of the players that shouldered the burden of trying to support Messi, but the combination of a French defence and Kante sitting in front left little space for him. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Javier Mascherano - 6 A yard short of the pace, and his midfield passes that once looked genius, now just take too much time and go backwards. AFP/Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Enzo Perez - 5 A quiet first half, and replaced by Aguero early in the second half. AFP/Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Angel Di Maria - 7 Everything he has been for quite a while now, inconsistent but has the talent to change a game, and his strike will be up there for goal of the tournament. AFP/Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Ever Banega - 6 Struggled to link up with Messi as he did against Nigeria, but worked hard and tried to help in defence too. Getty Images France vs Argentina: Player ratings Lionel Messi - 6 A quiet first half in a false nine position with team mates that left him to dig deeper and deeper for the ball, needed a striker to work with and Aguero’s introduction was too late for him. Yegor Aleyev/TASS

It was Benjamin Pavard’s equalising goal, I think, that was the point where you realised that this wasn’t going to be a regular World Cup knockout game. The business end of tournaments, common wisdom had it, were going to be cagier and tauter than the knockabout group stage. Teams massing behind the ball, petrified of giving away an early goal. Chances hard to come by. Unbearable tension. But Pavard’s deliriously good volley, smashed into the top corner with just a hint of wicked swerve at the end, put all that to bed. The normal rules, we realised, were ceasing to apply.

It was the first 4-3 in World Cup history not to require extra time. Of the eight shots on target in the game, seven resulted in goals. The only man to have a shot saved? Lionel Messi, who exited his fourth World Cup empty and broken, still without a knockout goal, still without an international trophy to his name. You can’t write this stuff. You can’t imagine that a talent like Mbappe’s will bloom so spectacularly and so simultaneously. You can’t script goals like Pavard’s or Angel di Maria’s. You can’t dare to hope that elite football – a sport where it’s easier to destroy than to create, where the fear of failure so often reigns supreme – can possibly produce something this good.

What makes a great game of football? Goals, obviously. But not just any old goals. And you can get too many. Portsmouth 7-4 Reading in the Premier League in 2007 isn’t remembered so much as a great game as a fairground curiosity, a malfunctioning football vending machine that short-circuited and began spitting out goals almost at random. Great individual performances are another prerequisite, but if that was all to it, then any Pantheon would surely have to include the stone-cold classic Rajiv’s Team 15-18 David’s Team from the school playground in 1993: a game best remembered for Jonathan Liew’s career-defining double hat-trick, which at one point included an unprecedented three consecutive nutmegs.

Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring France's third goal (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images)

So scale and stage are important too, but not every goal-fest at the elite level is an immediate classic. You also need characters and plot, ebb and flow, a recognisable storyline, order amid the apparent chaos. And here France’s goals seemed to make sense in a way Argentina’s did not; they emerged from recognisable patterns of play, from an established gameplan rather than speculative enterprise; even Pavard’s blockbuster came at the end of an attractive flowing move and a cross of the utmost athleticism. Argentina, meanwhile, were game but deserving losers, contributing to the game but importantly failing to define it. Individual brilliance looks great. Collective endeavour looks great. Knit the two together, and you’ve got greatness on your hands.

Was it the greatest World Cup game of all time? Italy 3-2 Brazil in 1982, in which Paolo Rossi’s hat-trick eliminated one of the most charming and gifted sides Brazil has ever produced, will have its advocates. Those of an older generation may submit Italy 4-3 West Germany from 1970, the Jahrhundertspiel, the Game of the Century, whose five goals in extra time set a record that is still yet to be beaten. And there can’t be many better ways of winning a World Cup than the way England did it in 1966: going behind, taking the lead, conceding a last-minute equaliser and then finally snuffing the game out in extra time, all in front of a disbelieving home crowd on a warm summer’s afternoon. You can’t really blame the English for banging on about it for all this time. The sensations of that day could power a lifetime.

It was Benjamin Pavard's goal that signalled how great this game was (Getty) (Getty Images)

Germany 7-1 Brazil from 2014? Too one-sided, too bloody, too ritualistic. Holland 2-1 Argentina from 1998? A brilliant finish, but actually a fairly slow burner for the most part. Ditto Italy 2-0 Germany from 2006. Holland 5-1 Spain in Salvador four years ago was stunning, as well as Spain 3-3 Portugal in Sochi, back in what seems like another lifetime. But can a group-stage game really be considered among the greatest? Brazil 3-2 Holland from 1994 was an underrated delight. But overall, it’s a measure of how sterile, dry and occasionally downright terrible the modern World Cup has been that you’d struggle to place a single game from the 21st century in a top-10 of all time.