Sometimes it is not enough to monopolise the limelight throughout the season. The two-and-a-half weeks between the Champions League final and the start of Euro 2008 could have provided some rare respite from Cristiano Ronaldo. Instead, like his predecessor in Manchester United's No. 7 shirt, (a certain Mr Beckham) there is no escaping 'the boy Ronaldo', as he is still known in the stands.
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The speculation doesn't seem to bother the winger.
Certainly not when Real Madrid are embarking on perhaps their most undignified pursuit of a player to date. That is not to exonerate Manchester United in some of their transfer dealings, but the combination of Real's marketing machine and Ronaldo's latest trick - telling people in different countries different things - has continued to fuel the engine of publicity in particularly unsavoury fashion.
Ronaldo's status is unquestioned: even Kaka and Lionel Messi can't attract quite as many headlines. His seeming quest for world domination could result in a world record fee, though Portugal would settle for supremacy in one continent. Real's high-profile pursuit of one right winger named after another (Ronald Reagan) drew a rare mention, in a footballing context anyway, of a third (General Franco) from a disgruntled Govan trade unionist, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Opinions abound: Luiz Felipe Scolari recommends Real Madrid but, as a potential Chelsea manager, he would. Even the normally muted Glazers broke their silence to voice their opposition to the covetous Castilians. Equipped with his pocketbook of long-forgotten Iberian conflicts, Carlos Queiroz preferred to concentrate on disputed towns on Spain's border with Portugal.
And Portugal, as much as anyone, could benefit from the conclusion of this tiresome saga. As Steven Gerrard, below par in Euro 2004, can testify, an uncertain future is scarcely the ideal backdrop to a pivotal three weeks in even a career as glorious as Ronaldo's.
To say Portugal's hopes rest on Ronaldo alone would be a slur to players of the calibre of Deco, Ricardo Quaresma and Ricardo Carvalho and would ignore the promise of the emerging generation of Miguel Veloso and Joao Moutinho. Nonetheless, it is inconceivable that Scolari will add the European Championships to the World Cup on his CV, or that Portugal will capture a first major trophy without a starring role from Ronaldo.
Much like his pace in full flight, the speed of his progress continues to startle. Eusebio has already been asked if he will be displaced as Portugal's greatest player - some fellow called Figo seems to have been banished from the top two by a 23-year-old - and he could be anointed as such with victory in Vienna on June 29.
Where once his stepovers were counted, now it is his goals. Five would bring up a half-century over the season for club and country. They would, too, provide a further illustration of his voracious appetite. Three seasons with Ruud van Nistelrooy, with whom he could be reunited in Madrid, evidently served as an education in the goalscorer's thought process.
Penalties and free kicks have been absorbed into his on-field empire but it is still more significant that, despite his supposed posting on the flanks, Ronaldo mustered more attempts on goal that any other Premier League player. Perhaps his most iconic celebration came against the worst team, the release of pent-up frustration after being denied by Derby was presumably accompanied by a sense of a natural entitlement to score against them.
There is, though, the paradox that Ronaldo's final act as a United player may have been to miss his spot kick in Moscow, the trademark stuttering approach indicating, rather than nerves, a man who possessed a dangerous surfeit of confidence. Nonetheless, the previous 120 minutes helped shed one unwanted tag. The supposed small-game player served as the Champions League final's most potent attacking weapon. This was Ronaldo as something approaching an orthodox left winger, but deploying his aerial power to head United into the lead.
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Ronaldo celebrates the Champions League win.
Despite a comparative shortage of goals against Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, the notion of Ronaldo as a man who struggled on the biggest stage has always involved ignoring his form for his country; his two previous international competitions have both been excellent. But the greats - Diego Maradona in 1986, Michel Platini two years earlier and, er, Theo Zagorakis four years ago - have left an indelible impression on a tournament.
That is the challenge for him now. He has elevated expectations to the extent that many believe that, like Marco van Basten and Zinedine Zidane before him, Ronaldo can both illuminate and determine the competition.
To do so, however, he must merge the roles of creator, scorer and all-round entertainer with still more success. Portugal's deficiency is the lack of an accomplished striker. This solution to Scolari's selection dilemma would be to dispense with Nuno Gomes, Helder Postiga and Hugo Almeida and copy Manchester United's fluid and interchangeable system.
If a full-back for the Czech Republic, Switzerland or Turkey has the most thankless task in Euro 2008, those problems could be shared with the central defenders if Portugal were to field, say, the sorcerer and his apprentice, Nani, plus one of the talented duo of Quaresma and Simao Sabrosa. It would involve Ronaldo being the nominal centre forward, but then Cristiano Ronaldo appears central to everything, particularly Portugal's chances, right now.
By Richard Jolly
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=542651&root=euro2008&cc=3888
