PREMIER LEAGUE:When Ronaldo does eventually leave Manchester United he will be sorely missed
ISN'T IT good to have Cristiano Ronaldo back? Having shuffled to the edge of a Nietzschean abyss of despair in the absence of our fallen idol, we discovered that God isn't dead, he just had a niggling ankle injury.
And, lo, he rose again, a great winking Messiah with boots laced with quicksilver and leaving the biggest oil slick on British shores since the Exxon Valdez ran aground.
And just in time, too. It would have been plain wrong had the BIGGEST game in the BIGGEST league in the world yesterday not been blessed with the presence of the sport's BIGGEST ego. And while 35 minutes was little more than a cameo, we were still treated to a showcase of Ronaldo's talents: the obligatory bared chest, the jet-heeled runs and a dive that would have been denounced as showy if it had been performed in the Beijing Water Cube.
In the end, Ronaldo's contribution to Manchester United's intriguing tussle with Chelsea was negligible. Then again, as the events of this summer showed, Ronaldo doesn't even need to be within sniffing distance of a football to hog the limelight.
Quite apart from the interminable wrangling between Manchester United and Real Madrid over who gets to keep him in Brylcreem for the rest of his days, we were also treated to daily updates of his various red-carpet appearances in Los Angeles - which, as the Mecca of the self-obsessed, will surely provide his final sporting resting place - and then a typically self-effacing acceptance speech at the Golden Boot awards.
"I am already in the history of Manchester United but, with this award, I have also changed football a little," he announced. "I am a winger but I have still been the most consistent and the best."
Now, on the one hand, these are the sorts of comments that make you want to beat Ronaldo around his pretty little head with a foot-long Madeira cake. And that's precisely what you would do were it not for one, trifling, infuriating little point: he is absolutely right.
In a sport that has become all too quick to believe its own publicity, Ronaldo is that rarest of creatures: someone who justifies the hype. In pure statistical terms, his record is astonishing but he also possesses a less tangible star quality, an ability to bewitch the senses and befuddle the brains of even the most grizzled cynic.
Last Wednesday, his mere appearance on the sideline for a warm-up was the cue for so many camera flashes it looked as if an aurora borealis had settled over the Stretford End. And yesterday at Chelsea, his every touch prompted the clattering of 42,000 seats as spectators got to their feet to catch a glimpse of his space-age boots.
On the face of it, Ronaldo appears a very modern kind of sporting superhero: the type who can not only produce moments of the most exquisite brilliance but also tell you - to the last euro - just how much his genius is worth in today's market-place.
In fact, he is not. Thirty years ago, another international megastar as famous for his unabashed egomania as his head-spinning turns, Johan Cruyff, set new standards in both technical brilliance and commercial avarice.
The Dutchman may have been the embodiment of Rinus Michels's determinedly purist total football at Ajax, but he knew the commercial value of all those turns and pirouettes. It's what led him to boycott The Netherlands' kit sponsorship deal with Adidas - he had already signed a personal contract with Puma and, as he put it, "didn't want to be a thief of my own pocket", a phrase that might have been lifted straight from Ronaldo's lips.
The parallels do not end there. Cruyff's steel-clad belief in his own worth eventually incited him to clamour for a money-spinning move to Spain just weeks after a famous European Cup win, a scenario that sounds only too familiar. The only difference is that Cruyff, knowing he had outgrown Ajax, got his move while Ronaldo, battling altogether bigger beasts in Manchester United and Alex Ferguson, has been forced, for now at least, to stay put.
Ferguson had little choice but to fight. The grim prospect of having to replace the irreplaceable is surely the only reason he put up with Ronaldo's shameless flirting with Real.
Quite how long Ferguson can keep his man-child content is anyone's guess but another year is probably the best he can hope for. Next summer Ronaldo will be on his way, stepping, falling and turning over all and sundry at the Bernabeu.
And when he does, United will not be the only ones to miss him.
