Europe ready for the Ronaldo show

Little did this elegant town know, when learning it was to house the Portuguese Euro 2008 squad, that its stadium would also end up being invaded by armies of English and Spanish journalists desperate to discover the ultimate destination of Cristiano Ronaldo next season. Ironic then that Brazil may have scooped them all.

"I want to play for Real Madrid," the drama magnet told the Brazilian website Terra, with the sort of immaculate timing this Swiss watchmaking centre could appreciate. The bombshell came with the rider that Real would have to cough up the required megabucks to prise him away from Manchester United - figures Ronaldo must know they've already agreed - before he demanded we should respect his silence until the tournament was dusted.

Quite brilliant, young Master Garbo. So Madrid is left quaking with expectation and Manchester with desperation while the lad with an ego to outstrip even his outsized talent can still leave just enough mystery hanging in the Alpine air to ensure that when Euro 2008 kicks off tomorrow, he will be, even more than in the one-man build-up, the absolute focus of a continent's attention.

The only minor problem then, as Portugal take on Turkey in Geneva, is living up to this new billing. Hype has never swirled about any player, not even Beckham, the way it is now enveloping the Madeiran. So how good does a £70million man have to be? Or a £300,000-a-week after tax man come to that?

There are still those who contend that, although Ronaldo dominated a Premier League season with the sort of all-round brilliance - scoring, heading, dribbling, shooting, creating - never witnessed before, he's somehow still got something to prove. Only Ronaldo himself doesn't buy this and why should he?

He can point to an impressive debut international championship at just 19, helping Portugal reach the Euro 2004 final while being selected for the UEFA team of the tournament. In 2006, he may have been young player of the World Cup if not for one unsavoury interlude as agent provocateur in Wayne Rooney's sending off.

And even if he faded in the Champions League Final and missed that shoot-out penalty, wasn't he still the best player on the pitch in Moscow? Is our only real problem with Ronaldo perhaps that he's consistently so brilliant that we feel somehow cheated if his performance dips to the merely excellent?

Of course, nothing fazes him; not getting kicked to pieces, not getting screamed at for cheating, not having the whole of England waving fists at him for World Cup chicanery. He just gets on with dazzling. "Mentally, he's incredibly tough," said Chelsea's Portuguese defender Paulo Ferreira.

As for the idea that he may have been distracted by the Madrid fuss, what a laugh. "I don't expect him to have too many sleepless nights over that," his coach Luiz Felipe Scolari noted wryly. "Instead, I expect him to prove himself to be the best player in the world here." Why? Because the spotlight is Ronaldo's best mate.

The big top is beautifully set up for the young ringmaster. "History creates itself over a number of years, not in a moment," pondered Ronaldo. "I think I'm on the right road."

Five trophies with United already and inching ever closer to his first international gong suggests he's not wrong. That road could lead all the way to Vienna before the fast lane branches towards the Bernabeu.