This has been the World Cup of shattered assumptions. Everywhere you look, what you think will happen just hasn’t: England have won a penalty shoot-out, Germany have gone out at the group stage, Russia are still in it.

But the most astonishing undermining of the norm comes in this  statistic: the team with the least number of yellow cards so far in the tournament are Uruguay.

What makes that fact all the more unexpected is that this has been a competition in which needle, nark and nastiness appear to have been in the ascendant. Colombia, Panama and Argentina have all excelled in the underhand, moaning at referees, tumbling and diving, constantly snarking and sniding.

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Uruguay, who many might have expected to be at the forefront of this new wave of ugliness, have simply got on with the job of defending. And they have done it in as clean a manner as possible, accruing just one booking and conceding just one goal along the way to a quarter final encounter with France on Saturday.

But their coach Oscar Tabárez would argue that, while this may well be the national team which once redefined the term cynical with its relentless kick and hassle performances against Scotland and Denmark at the 1986 World Cup, at this tournament they are not behaving entirely against type.

He has long insisted that Uruguayans were not born to kick. He points out that when they won the World Cup in 1950, they conceded just 11 fouls in the final. What became the default national style was based on an incorrect reading of what made them good in the first place.

It was not filth that took them to victory in Brazil that year, the coach points out, it was proper organisation and above all proper defending. And in the person of Diego Godín, his rock of a centre back, the veteran Tabárez has living testimony of his theory.

Godín has been the stand-out defender at this tournament, out-shining the likes of Gerard Pique, Sergio Ramos and Pepe. Unlike Pique, or John Stones or Nicolas Otamendi, he has not done so by the manner in which he has smoothly brought the ball out from the back. Godín doesn’t do dribbles. What he does is simply defend.

At the age of 32, after eight seasons with Atletico Madrid, Godín is now the master of stopping. He stands at the pinnacle of his trade not through underhand means, but by reading the game, by getting in between opponent and ball, by displaying relentless concentration. Plus by being prepared to throw his body in the way of danger. This is the player, after all, who lost most of his front teeth after a horrible clash with the Valencia goalkeeper earlier this year during a La Liga game (he probably remembers it more for the 1-0 victory, his ideal scoreline).

As Tabárez’s conscience on the pitch, Godín orchestrates the Uruguay backline. He talks, he points, he organises. And he takes it as a personal slight when a goal is conceded (which is not often: Uruguay have let in  just one goal in seven successive victories in 2018). That was against Portugal in the previous round, when Godín, momentarily distracted by the attentions of Cristiano Ronaldo, allowed Pepe to better him at a corner.

The look of absolute self-disgust on his face following that concession suggests Antoine Griezmann and his French colleagues will be up against a hugely determined obstacle in Nizhny Novgorod. Undoubtedly Griezmann will find his close friend and Atlético colleague (Godín is godfather to Griezmann’s daughter) much less willing to concede time and space than the hopelessly disorganised shambles of an Argentine defence they faced in the last round.

Under Tabárez’s guidance, this is a side that knows how to defend properly. And while Godín has largely escaped wider attention (he has been nominated  for the Ballon d’Or only once, in 2014, when he received no votes  whatsoever) his continued brilliance at this tournament will surely have alerted English clubs to his qualities. After all, the Premier League could do with some defenders who know how to defend. And with a buy-out clause on his Atlético contract of just €20 million (£17.65m), we will surely be hearing  more of this calm, dignified and above all scrupulously clean-tackling  Uruguayan defender.