Golden Talk: Tom Humphries listens in as the savvy but likeable striker shares hisjoy

He's wearing a blue sweatshirt and a great gappy smile when he comes into the interview area. The smile is wonderful. The shirt is out of date.

Above the Brazilian crest there are four stars, one for each World Cup his country has claimed, before yesterday.

He has an easy, infectious manner does Ronaldo. He smiles a lot, and even though he's been through the wringer and back during the past few years it holds no bitterness for him. If people wrote him off, he's not here to chastise them; if there were doubters, he's not going to tell them he told them so. He's just here to smile about it all and share it all, and that makes him more likeable than most who troop through these mixed zones.

"Slowly, slowly," he says, "I am starting to understand what is happening tonight. I'm so happy and I'm very touched. I think we played a great game this evening. We brought joy to millions of people, it will take some time for me to see and figure out what happened here, but with a little time and distance it will be clear to me."

The past is clear to him already. The tortured years, when his right knee betrayed him again and again and it looked as if he would end his days as one of those tragedies who left a great future behind him some place. That he didn't do that made last night special. The reaction of the players he beat with his two goals told you how special Ronaldo is to those who know him. Starting with Rudi Völler, almost every German walked up to him and hugged him and rubbed his head when the game finished yesterday.

Ronaldo took it all in with the goofy look of a kid living in a dream. Did he fall asleep and see himself here, the World Cup final and the two decisive goals with his name on them? He shrugs his shoulders and smiles. Of course he did, but he's not so arrogant as to tell us about it.

"The wildest dreams?" he smiles. "No. Not even that. Not even in dreams.

"It's so marvellous. I am so happy. I just have to thank God, my family, everybody I know and I like. My physio (Nilton Petroni), who took care of me and made me go through every step on the road to this recovery. I just want to thank everyone."

There must be two million journalists in Brazil and each one of them is accredited. They have 39 questions each which they must have answered now. Some are daft, some are philosophical. If Brazil hadn't won, Ronaldo, but you had recovered to this point, would you be so happy as you are? He's looking to the roof now, trying to draw the answer down from the stars beyond. Who knows where perspective dawns?

"I think I would be glad to be standing alive. I would consider every time I step on a pitch to be a victory for me, everytime I score a goal, everytime I enter the ground, everytime I am around for a game. It's a victory every time. I consider the fact I can play, that I can be here, that I can be around, it's a victory. It's a huge step. If I wasn't the world champion, yes, I would definitely be happy."

Brazilian journalists, all five million of them, are a lively bunch who move in a knot of emotional chaos everywhere. They all have 100 questions to ask. Here's one for history buffs: "What about having reached the mark of 12 goals in World Cups? What about the future?"

Much nodding. Pele, the Brazilian record holder, only scored 12. Ronaldo's career could last another two World Cups. Pele could be humiliated.

"I think that having the World Cup in my hands, as I had a few moments ago, it's the most wonderful moment. All that happens to me, the goals record or whatever, would never happen if I didn't have a team with me. They are marvellous, they are fighters, there is nothing for the individual that can go beyond what this group did.

"The future? I'm going to celebrate a lot, I know new goals will come for me. I am ambitious and I will go with them."

Okay. Next. So Ronaldo, which is better, to be the world champion or to end this long period of training without sex? Ronaldo listens to the question and his mouth curls into a grin.

"Both are hard to stay without," he says. "I am sure that sex will not be so rewarding as the World Cup. Sex, I am going to do in a few moments (uneasy shuffling in press corps), but I don't expect it to be as rewarding. Then again, the World Cup is every four years. Sex is more often. If you're lucky."

And he turns to the translator with a big grin. All yours.

Inevitably he is asked about 1998, that grey area which he never really cuts through with his answers. What difference did it make to you tonight, that long nightmare?

"I felt that I didn't have any debt to Brazil, I had no feeling that I owed the people something. I spoke to Cafu and Roberto Carlos about this, about what we missed in 1998 and we thought it was the sense of celebration, the joy. We had this opportunity in 1998 and we said we cannot miss it again. Not only our joy but the joy of the Brazilian people. That's the thing that is different tonight."

Final questions. Ronaldo is getting itchy. The future. Sixth title?

"I want to celebrate," he says. "I want to have all the pleasure of celebrating the situation. Of course I'm not talking about the sixth title right now. I want to enjoy this."

But the future. Make a prediction. Finish on a high note. The best is yet to come? You ain't seen nothing yet? He leans forward to answer. They describe him as a manchild, but he is savvier than that.

"I don't want to feel any pressure now about the future, I want to think about today. I don't want anything beyond celebrating. Thank you very much."

And he leaps from his stool, throws a green cap on his head and is gone into the happy present he has made for himself.