If we learnt anything over the weekend, it was that Holland and Argentina are looking good and that Germany are not. That might seem rather obvious in the wake of the thrashings dished out by Holland and Argentina to South Korea and Jamaica respectively, and after Germany's struggling draw with Yugoslavia, but at this still early stage in the World Cup, we cannot come to any more definite conclusions.

Undoubtedly the game that will have attracted most attention over the weekend was Germany's draw with Yugoslavia. In many ways, this struck me as the classic German performance. They started off badly and got worse, being completely outplayed by a much better footballing side. Germany went down 2-0 deservedly and if it had been any other team, that was the end of that. Yet, Germany are not any other team. They have tremendous mental strength and they keep on trucking. Perhaps even more importantly, they had tremendous luck in Lens yesterday when Michael Tarnat put them back into the game with a 74th minute free kick that took a wicked deflection off a Yugoslav defender.

Having played miserably until that moment, Germany suddenly picked themselves up. They started getting tackles in, people looked sharper and one could sense the Yugoslavs beginning to lose faith in their ability to hold on and win the match. There was an all too familiar inevitability about their equaliser and by the end, if any side was actually going to win, it was Germany.

Having said all of that, I do not much fancy Germany in this World Cup. Before the tournament, we all knew that they had come to France with the squad with the oldest average age. That was bad enough but what is worse is that the few young players who have been drafted in - defenders Christian Worns and Jorg Heinrich and midfielders Jens Jeremies and Dietmar Hamann - look very ordinary to me. Furthermore, key players such as midfielders Andreas Moeller and Christian Ziege seem woefully far from their best form. As for Yugoslavia, I do not much rate them either. They clearly have wonderful individual talents - Dejan Stankovic, Dragan Stojkovic, Predray Mijatovic - but they do not convince in terms of commitment, organisation and team work and I think they will come unstuck when they meet a really good side.

Which really good side could, of course, be Argentina. It is difficult to come to hard and fast conclusions about them after their 5-0 win against Jamaica but they look a very, very strong unit. However, so far they have faced only Japan and Jamaica and opposition like that tells you little or nothing.

Two things emerged from the Argentina win yesterday, however. Firstly, Gabriel Batistuta continues to demonstrate just why he has been one of the most prolific goalscorers of recent seasons in Italy's Serie A. He is simply a tremendous player, always in the game, always looking for goals and, furthermore, when he does get the chance, he is nearly always on target.

Argentina's little number 10, Ariel Ortega, also burst into prominence with his two goals yesterday and he could go on from here to become one of the revelations of the tournament. He has pace, skill and, as he showed yesterday, an ability to finish.

Holland's 5-0 win over South Korea was rather similar to Argentina's win in that, while it was achieved against obviously inferior opposition, it proved significant for at least one reason. Namely, it showed that Dennis Bergkamp is back for Holland and with him back, they are a much better, more vibrant team.

My final thought concerns Croatia's 1-0 win against Japan. The Croats did the bare minimum, soaking up a lot of Japanese pressure, even almost conceding a goal before they struck through Davor Suker to win rather comfortably in the end. Croatia now look destined to finish second to Argentina in Group H and that is good news for England who would face Croatia in the next round if they go on to win their Group. For more about that, though, we will have to wait for tonight's England-Romania game.

(In an interview with Paddy Agnew)