But although they were coming from opposing fans, they weren't being directed at him. They were, instead, for the ears of Frank Rijkaard and the reason behind them gave a flavour at the phenomenon Ronaldinho has become. The Celta Vigo fans that night were booing Rijkaard for depriving them of another half an hour in the company of the world's greatest footballer.

This is where we are with him now, a fortnight out from the tournament many assume will double as his coronation.

When the Bernabeu crowd rose to its feet to give him a standing ovation after the second of his goals buried Real Madrid last November, it was a reprise of the scene 22 years earlier when they'd done the same for Diego Maradona. The World Cup that defined Maradona came three months before his 26th birthday; Ronaldinho reached that age in March. The time is now, if it is to be at all.

The story of the best player in the world isn't as rags-to-riches as popular thought would have you imagine. His home in Villa Nova, a suburb of Porto Alegre (literally 'Happy Port') is neither slum nor country club but rather somewhere in between. His older brother Roberto . . . Assis in the parlance of a country where everyone goes by a nickname . . . was the family's future for a time as he rose through the ranks at local professional club Gremio. Indeed, when officials from the Italian side Torino came sniffing around Assis, Gremio stumped up the money to move the family to a bigger house with a swimming pool.

So the Moreiras weren't street urchins.

Ronaldinho's father Joao worked in the city's shipyards during the week and was a matchday attendant at Gremio come the weekend.

He was, by all accounts, justifiably proud of Assis and what he was on his way to achieving but would tell anyone who'd listen that they seen nothing until they'd seen Assis's kid brother play.

"I used to love dribbling as a boy, " Ronaldinho said in an interview in the Observer a couple of years ago. "The way we used to play, in the street, was no good for anything of course. If you're playing for five hours you don't want to score all the time and I loved dribbling. I could score a goal but I preferred dribbling. But my father said no. This was when I was seven. My father . . . who could be very hard, very correct . . . forced me to play with only two touches of the ball each time."

His father's influence would have continued in later years had he not had a heart attack in their swimming pool in January 1989. It was the day of Assis's 18th birthday and also their parents' 19th wedding anniversary. Joao died in hospital a few days later.

Ronaldinho . . . or simply Ronaldo as he was at the stage . . . was eight. "I am motivated by wanting to make the dreams of my father come true, " he has said. "When I was very little, my father predicted that I would be exactly where I am now. My father said that I would play for Brazil and that I would be the best player in the world."

The line that runs from that curly-haired eight-year-old to the long-locked star who's just won the Champions League to go along with a second La Liga in a row is one in which family has been all. After the death of his father, his mother Miguelina studied to become a nurse so she could support him, his sister and his brother. Assis continued to play football to a more than decent standard but when a knee injury kept him out of the 1992 Olympic team, it was as close as he got to the top. By the mid-90s, Ronaldinho was making a name for himself with Gremio's junior sides, once scoring 23 goals in a single game. It wasn't long before Assis took the decision to oversee his brother's career.

In 1997, Ronaldinho was the star of the tournament as Brazil won the under-17 world championships in Egypt. Within a year, he'd made his professional debut for Gremio; within another year, he'd played for the full Brazilian side, scoring his first goal as Brazil won the Copa America.

The inevitable move to Europe followed and where Ronaldinho went, his family followed.

Assis was, and is, his agent. His sister Deisi was in college at the time but soon came to join him to run his schedule; to this day, she organises his life down to the minute. His mother lived with him in Paris for the first while, although she divides her year pretty much half and half between Europe and Porto Alegre these days. As the family industry, Ronaldinho's only concern is playing. "Everything else my family looks after, " he says. "In our house, everyone has a job and my job in our house is to play football."

Not that he's always held up his end of the bargain. From this vantage point, it seems strange to think that it's not all that especially long ago that he was close to being ushered off onto what we might politely call the Denilson scrapheap, there to languish for eternity with kindred unfulfilled talents. His time with Paris Saint Germain gave no real indication that he'd reach this World Cup as the undisputed pinnacle of the possibilities of the sport. In his final season in France, he scored just eight goals, fell out with his manager Luis Fernandez (who, it is generally agreed, was correct after Ronaldinho defended his right to paartay) and stood helpless as PSG finished the season in 11th place.

Part of the problem was the inflation of his head brought about by the World Cup win in 2002. Those who watched him at the time speak of a player who thought he knew everything and who wasn't shy about letting others become aware of the fact. He was 22, callow and even sulky at times, a world removed from the grinning trickster we've come to recognise as the world's best.

Appearances and caricature need context.

It was in Paris that he spent hours and hours watching the videos of Magic Johnson play basketball from which he took the inspiration for the no-look pass he's as good as patented.

But when he tried them out at the time, he was in a poor team that was on a different wavelength playing in front of an unimpressed crowd who had come to grow weary of him and his image. That which we now hail as instinctive genius was dismissed back then as indulgent showboatery. Context is all.

He found that context at Barcelona when he moved there in the summer of 2003. Those who wonder why he didn't join Manchester United at the time have his mother to blame as Alex Ferguson had offered both him and PSG more money than the Catalan side were willing to. Indeed the story told by one Barcelona director goes that United took off on their pre-season US tour that summer certain that he'd joined only to touch down on American soil and find out he'd decided against it. The reason? Said director has managed to get his mother on the phone and convince her that her family would be more comfortable in sunny Barcelona than in rainy Manchester.

It was, despite the view from where he's sitting now, a considerable gamble on Ronaldinho's part. United had just won the Premiership and were the richest club in the world. Barca, by contrast, were a mess at the time, mired in debt and without a trophy for the previous four years. Joan Laporta had come to power and Ronaldinho was left in no doubt that the new president's fortunes would rise or fall on his back.

That he signed for Barcelona says much for the mental strength his goofy grin often hides. In signing, he was effectively deciding to become the best player in the world. He knew Barca would be built around him and also that were he to lead them to a Spanish title, such is their renown that he'd be hailed as little short of a messiah. Over the previous decade, Romaria, Ronaldo and Rivaldo had all been crowned World Player of the Year while wearing the blue and red. Ronaldinho had decided to be next. It was that or failure.

While plenty predicted good things for him at the Camp Nou, nobody knew he'd go other-worldly. But that's what he's done. As the neon-lit star of a Rijkaard-led side that has swept all before it while Real Madrid have sunk further and further into comedy and vaudeville, he has become close to unstoppable. He has resisted all attempts to shut him down . . . Chelsea, for a start, haven't yet been able to get to grips with him over the course of four games.

All that remains is for him to take a World Cup and make it his. In 2002, he was a tributary rather than a heavy current. His freekick against England was, he's since admitted, a fluke but only because he was aiming for the top right-hand corner of David Seaman's net rather than the top-left. But that aside, he fired only in fits and starts during the tournament, leaving the winning of it to Rivaldo and Ronaldo.

This time, as the only one of a star-laden attacking unit to have had the stellar kind of season the football world was expecting, it's to the little curly-headed one from Porto Alegre that Brazil is turning. Brazil and the world, truth be told.

TOP OF THEIR GAME: WORLD PLAYERS IN THE WORLD CUP

The FIFA World Player of the Year award has only been around since 1991, with Lothar Mattheus its first winner.

Ronaldinho will, therefore, be only the fourth man to go into a World Cup bearing the tag. Here are the other three and how they fared.

1 ROBERTO BAGGIO (USA 94)

Had both an inauspicious beginning and end to the tournament but was by a street Italy's best player throughout, carrying them all the way to the final. He was quiet enough in the group stages against Ireland, Norway and Mexico and it wasn't until the knock-out stages that he really came to life. Against Nigeria, he waltzed through for a brilliant late equaliser before scoring the winning penalty in extra-time.

Also scored a late winner against Spain in the quarter"nal and both goals in the 2-1 win over Bulgaria in the semi"nal. Will always be remembered, however, for missing the penalty in the shoot-out that handed Brazil the "nal.

2 RONALDO (FRANCE 98)

Another for whom the tournament ended badly but who could be happy with what went before the disastrous final.

Scored four goals along the way as Brazil strode to the "nal, including two in the 4-1 demolition of Chile and one in the memorable semi-final against Holland which they eventually won on penalties. It was all overshadowed by the mysterious illness on the night of the "nal, however.

3 LUIS FIGO (JAPAN & SOUTH KOREA 02)

Had a terrible tournament, something which is thought to have influenced his decision to come out of retirement for these finals. Portugal lost to the US and beat Poland with Figo largely anonymous throughout both games and matters didn't improve in the final match against South Korea .