At this year's competition in South Africa, the early candidates are Luis Suarez of Uruguay, Asamoah Gyan of Ghana and Spain's David Villa. Both have led their teams to the quarterfinals and could be the ones to push their teammates all the way.

Uruguay had not been to the last eight of the World Cup since 1970 but Suarez took them there with his third goal of the tournament for a 2-1 win over South Korea.

"Fortunately, Suarez was able to score that spectacular winning goal," coach Oscar Tabarez said.

It is what makes the World Cup so special. Within a month, players can burst from the fringes of popular consciousness to center stage.

Almost no one outside Italy knew of Schillaci before the 1990 World Cup but the reserve striker ended up leading scorer with six goals, dragging the host nation to one penalty shootout from reaching the final in Rome.

On Tuesday in Cape Town, Portugal plays Spain.

With Cristiano Ronaldo, Fernando Torres, Xavi Hernandez and David Villa available, the game will have plenty of defining players. Villa has played well and scored spectacularly, but Ronaldo and Torres have yet to play a defining game here.

"I'm still missing something, I notice I can't give it all but it's not easy to return from an operation," said Torres, who is only just back in action after right knee surgery in April. "I need some time to be 100 percent." Ronaldo has less of an excuse and Portugal has been more impressive than its star player.

The World Cup was seemingly set up for Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o to shine. It was the first time Africa hosted it, and banners bore his likeliness to market the event. Yet he was out when the first round was over.

"There's no point blaming one person or another," Eto'o said. Many, though, will remember his public spat with former Cameroon great Roger Milla, who rebuked striker Eto'o for failing to reproduce his club form with the national team.

For at least another four years, Milla will continue to tower over Eto'o in the minds of fans for leading Cameroon to the quarterfinals in 1990 and putting Africa on the World Cup map.

Like Eto'o, Chelsea's Didier Drogba also failed to come through for the Ivory Coast, although the broken right arm he suffered just ahead of the World Cup is a big excuse.

But some players do live up to the hype.

Coming into the World Cup, Lionel Messi had been criticized as producing for Barcelona but not Argentina.

Once in South Africa though, failing to get on the score sheet has been the only flaw in an otherwise impeccable performance.

"No one has played even at 40 percent of the level Messi played the other day," coach Maradona said of Messi's performance in a 1-0 win over Nigeria. "He needed a game like that, to be a charismatic leader with his teammates." Maradona knows what it needs to take on that role.

In 1986, he was at the peak of his talent and made the World Cup his own with some of the greatest goals in history against England and Belgium. He then set up the decider in the 3-2 final win against Germany.

That World Cup has been identified with the Argentine dynamo ever since.

Four years later, he led an inferior Argentina team yet again and had the towering presence to take it to the final against all odds, losing to Germany only on a belated penalty.

This year, the race for the defining figure in a World Cup full of surprises is still wide open. Ajax's Suarez already has three goals and it will be tough to see a more thrilling one than his decider against South Korea.

He sidestepped two defenders in the driving rain and struck a right-foot shot from the edge of the area that curled just enough to beat the goalkeeper.

"Being young, I always dream of these types of moments," the 23-year-old forward said. "These moments we're experiencing are once in a lifetime." It was the same for Gyan. He got the injury-time winner in a 2-1 victory over the United States, when he took a long ball from Andre Ayew over the defense, stayed upright despite a challenge and shot from 16 meters (yards) to send his country to the quarterfinals for the first time.