Chrissy Iley on Ronaldo and Milene Domingues

Ronaldo is only ever called Ronaldo - you know, like Prince, Madonna, Cher. So he was always going to be tagged in some world-shattering way because of his first-name-only status.

"Ronaldo is football" is how his full name usually reads. He followed the well-worn Brazilian path to football glory, growing up in a slum with an alcoholic father who left his mother to a life of drudgery. Ronaldo played barefoot in the streets and dreamed the universal football dream. When it came true, he used the money from his first pay cheque to move his mother out of the slums. There was nothing remotely glamorous about him.

He was on track to be the model professional who let his feet do the talking, and a thousand other football clichs. But a string of knee injuries plucked him from his prime, so in that way he became tragic. Before that he was a rather passionless player, despite all the passion he inspired in others. He was programmed to win with a no-nonsense, unstoppable drive straight to the goalmouth. He does not drink much, he does not smoke. He looks after his mother, visits the Pope, works for several children’s charities, drops in to console earthquake victims, and tries hard to please his corporate sponsors. He learns languages so he can be polite to journalists in their own tongue. Not really very rock’n’roll.

He accepted his best-in-the-world status with a kind of regal grace, ego under control, but he was never fully adored because he was never really flawed. He never had a shrine built for him and filled with Buddhas like Beckham. He never had a best mate called Five Bellies, a celebrity party featured in Hello! or OK!, or a pop star wife. Although he did have a couple of model girlfriends, who later posed together as "Ronaldo’s exes" in Playboy.

In fact, his choice of girlfriend may well have been the most interesting thing about him. At first, he was quite happy to stick to the football girlfriend template; as well as the Playboy poseurs there was model and TV presenter Suzanne Werner and a rumoured frisson with Anna Kournikova.

But his injuries changed all that. He started to give dramatic interviews every time he recovered saying, I never lost hope, football is my life. At around this time, his ego must have kicked in. He made that incredible man-with-a-sense-of-entitlement gesture, the kind of arrogant behaviour which is only exhibited by those who are driven by their plummeting performance: he saw a woman on television, Milene Domingues, and he wanted her, he had to have her. So he rang mutual friends and had dinner set up. He said soon after, "This is my blessing by God, my life’s dream. I have found the right person." Within three months she was pregnant and a marriage was announced. Milene’s mother didn’t want to go to the ceremony. It was all too quick, and she was worried.

Suzanne Werner, the ex-girlfriend, described the marriage as "hilarious". I’m not sure which part she found most funny: there were the rumours of a subsequent love child by a model and cries of divorce; there was the couple’s own child, and the fact they called the baby Ronald - yes, son of Ronaldo takes the international version of his father’s name; and then there was something I find rather a quaint notion - Milene fancied herself as a football star.

Ronaldo is football, and now he has a wife who is also football. She’s signed for the Italian Serie A team Fiamma Monza - the women’s game is professional there and taken very seriously. This is not following the footballer’s wife clich at all. Apparently back home she was called ‘Rainha Das Embaixadinhas’ (queen of the keepie-uppie). No, this is not some kind of Brazilian wonderbra reference, it’s because she holds the world record for keeping a football in the air - 55,187 touches in nine hours and six minutes. What skill.

The captain of her new team confirms, "Her arrival has given us new energy. She is a very simple girl. She is a good player, she is good for us." Talk about being damned by faint praise. Simple Milene and regal Ronaldo spending their lives playing with balls and helping children.

It’s inevitable in any marriage where the couple are both involved in the same profession that there is going to be some degree of rivalry, jealousy, power play. When that profession is a competitive one, it is essential that one partner submits. The only way that Steffi and Andre could work it out was by her surrendering and stepping out of the game. The idea that Milene is stepping into the game instead suggests trouble. She’s been quoted in many newspapers, suddenly also speaking many languages, saying how football is her life. Where have we heard that before?

Ronaldo, at 21, behaved like a prince. He gave the impression that he had no hang-ups about his slummy background and he didn’t have to spend, spend, spend just to prove his worth. He was driven to score goals, not to score glamour.

He was shy, but physically strong and morally upright. The more injured he became, the more hope he lost, but the less he could admit it to himself. The pressure of being the best in the world wouldn’t allow him any doubt. But before the 1998 World Cup final, he had to be stopped from swallowing his tongue as he lay convulsing in a hotel room. Stress had brought on the breakdown.

Brazil lost the final in spectacular fashion. In

90 minutes, the world witnessed the destruction of football’s young idol. It was around this time that he must have reluctantly swapped the idea of being a safe role model that parents loved to being someone who must be loved not as an icon but for who he is, something that he might have forgotten because the suffocating world of international football had created a large and fragile ego where previously there was a good heart.

He is a spiritual man who believes in God. He also believes in the very ungodly notion that his ego and his heart can be saved by a blonde who was called queen of the keepie-uppie. If only he’d gone for a straightforward model - say, Gisele - everything could have fitted into the food chain. That basic feudal system where everyone knows their place, where footballers’ wives do not play football because it makes their husbands look silly. n

Chrissy Iley lives in London with Shiksa the cat. In LA, her feline flatmates include the colourfully named Slut, Hollywood and Mr Love