Worldscene: At 6 ft 2½ in, he is built more in the mould of a rugby number eight than of a soccer centre forward. From his left-foot, mule-kick of a shot, the ball has been measured at an awesome 129.7 kilometres per hour.

Capable of covering the first 20 metres in 2.84 seconds from a standing start, he recently registered the respectable time of 10.12 seconds for a 75-metre dash during which he dribbled his way past five opponents, before scoring a truly spectacular goal.

We are talking about 22-year-old Leite Ribeiro Adriano, yet another in the seemingly inexhaustible line of stunningly talented Brazilian footballers. Tomorrow night, while his club Inter Milan do Champions League battle away to Werder Bremen, Adriano can be afforded the rare luxury of a rest. With Inter already qualified for the next round of the Champions League, the Brazilian striker can sit this one out, waiting for the big game of the weekend next Sunday night when Inter play host to league leaders Juventus at the San Siro.

Until last weekend, when he was also excused from Inter's 3-1 Italian Cup win over Bologna, Adriano had been an automatic first-choice selection in this season's team. Without his 16 goals (nine in Serie A, seven in the Champions League), Inter's already bizarre season would be looking a great deal worse.

For years now, Inter have been among the great under-achievers of European football. With talented coach Roberto Mancini in charge and with a white-hot striker like Adriano in the side, Inter fans had been hoping for a change of fortunes. Yet, while Inter have been impressive thus far in Europe (three wins, one draw), they go into next Sunday night's game fully 15 points adrift of Juventus and with the bizarre record of 10 draws and two wins in 12 league games.

As far as the Serie A title contest is concerned, Sunday night's game is already being billed as a "last-gasp chance" for Inter.

Incidentally, it says much about the changed times at Inter that Italian international Christian Vieri will line out against Werder Bremen tomorrow night, using that match as a chance to play his way back into the Inter first-choice team alongside Adriano for Sunday night's big match.

The week-long hype sure to precede this game (Juventus have also already qualified for the next round of the Champions League) is unlikely to rattle Adriano. For a start, he has been in Italian football since the summer of 2001 when he signalled his arrival (a $10 million purchase from Brazilian club Flamengo) with a stunning, trademark, left-foot free-kick goal for Inter in a pre-season friendly with Real Madrid. Farmed out to Fiorentina and Parma after that, Adriano has seen plenty enough Serie A hype.

More significant, though, may be his mentality. Asked about his now regular Brazilian team-mate, Real Madrid's Ronaldo recently told reporters: "The big thing about Adriano is that he loves football and that he is driven by his poor background, that really makes him want to be a winner."

Adriano is indeed yet another in the seemingly cliched mould of South American poor-boy made good through football. He comes from the Rio de Janeiro favela of Complex do Alemao, a shanty town of 300,000 inhabitants known to those charity organisations which work in it as "the lungs of the Rio de Janeiro drug trade". Half of those who live in Complex do Alemao are illiterate, while life in the favela can be highly dangerous given the high preponderance of firearms.

Adriano has come up through the school of hard knocks. On the wall of the little dirt pitch in Complex do Alemao where he played his first football, there is now a rather crude but enthusiastic mural depicting him in an Inter Milan shirt. He is obviously a figure of inspiration and hope for those left behind in the shanty town.

For them and for Inter, he will hope to justify that hope and expectation at the San Siro next Sunday night.