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The identities of six of next summer's World Cup finalists are already known. More than 600,000 tickets have been sold and broadcasting rights flogged in more than 200 countries. Five new stadiums are at various stages of completion, while five existing ones have been revamped. New hotels and transport systems have sprung up across the nine host cities, and a leopard named Zakumi, the "jolly, self-confident, adventurous, spontaneous and actually quite shrewd" tournament mascot, is already on hand to welcome millions of visitors. Unfortunately for the organisers of the first World Cup to be held in Africa, those visitors may not include the world's two best footballers.

Troubled qualification campaigns for Portugal and Argentina mean Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, ranked first and second in Fifa's most recent world player of the year poll, could miss the finals. If they are absent, it could be the biggest setback in 50 years to the attractiveness of the biggest tournament in world sport.

Many fine players have never graced football's great jamboree – George Best and George Weah leap to mind – but not since 1958, when Alfredo di Stéfano and Ferenc Puskas were absent, has the tournament gone ahead without the two top talents of the day. Johan Cruyff refused to travel to the 1978 finals in Argentina after a kidnap attempt against his family, and England's failure to qualify also deprived the watching world of a chance to see the European footballer of the year, Kevin Keegan, in action. In truth, though, Cruyff was reaching the end of his magnificent career. Ronaldo and Messi, by contrast, are at their peaks, unlike when they played in the 2006 finals. The same cannot be said of their national teams, certainly in this qualification series.

Argentina's slick and enterprising football lit up the last World Cup and their quarter-final exit at the hands of Germany was one of the shocks of the tournament, yet they have found the road to South Africa difficult to navigate. They lost one manager en route, Alfio Basile resigning last year after his team's stuttering start to the campaign, and they went into this morning's bout with Brazil clinging on to South America's last automatic qualifying spot, and with Ecuador and Uruguay poised to profit from any more slip-ups.

Basile's replacement, Diego Maradona, is a national hero but many doubted he had the managerial acumen to harness the potential of a gifted bunch of players that, in addition to Messi, includes Javier Mascherano, Maxi Rodríguez and Maradona's own son-in-law, Sergio Agüero, of Atlético Madrid. Those sceptics felt vindicated in April when Argentina were spanked 6-1 by Bolivia, their worst defeat in more than 60 years.

Even a win over Brazil would not guarantee their place in the draw in Cape Town on 4 December, as tough away assignments to Uruguay and Paraguay remain, and Argentina are so far winless away from home since their trip to Venezuela 23 months ago.

In Europe, the power failure that interrupted September's Group One opener between Malta and Portugal could be symbolic of the Portuguese campaign. That a team featuring talents such as Ronaldo, Deco, Ricardo Carvalho and Nani went into last night's match in Copenhagen seven points adrift of the group leaders, Denmark, and four behind the second-placed Hungary attests to extraordinary underachievement.

Inevitably much of the blame for Portugal's predicament has been attributed to their coach, Carlos Queiroz, Sir Alex Ferguson's former assistant at Manchester United, and while it is true he has made some strange selections since taking the helm 13 months ago, giving debuts to no fewer than 17 players and recalling Luis Boa Morte to the international fold after a three-year absence, he also inherited a team without a top-class striker or holding midfielder and has frequently been betrayed by his star players' bad finishing. Hence three consecutive 0-0 draws, including the home games against Albania and Sweden.

The World Cup would be poorer without the great players of Argentina and Portugal. Both teams could still go straight through, but there is an even more appealing scenario – the play-offs. Finishing fifth in the South American table could set up a make-or-break game between Messi's men and Mexico, while finishing second in their group would pit Portugal against a fellow European runner-up such as, perhaps, France, Germany or Russia. Now that would be a fine appetiser for next summer's finals.