Ronaldo claims his place in epic story of redemption

Brazil's talismanic centre-forward overcomes all the odds to inspire his country to deserved victory against combative Turks

Even in the worst of years, which you now have to force yourself to remember this one threatened to be, you cannot separate Brazilian football from the epic. Epic sadness, joy, pain, it all spills out of a game shaped in the shanties and so often moved to the heavens.

Ronaldo's story is an epic of redemption, and it is one unfolding here so dramatically that even the most romantic and successful World Cup nation of them all may this Sunday night in Yokohama be obliged to ransack all of their history and conclude they cannot find one to compare.

The goal that beat Turkey last night was Ronaldo's sixth of a competition which many believed would simply pass by a Brazilian team so far from their old greatness that they lost an unprecedented six qualifying games. The strike came in a sudden spurt of virtuosity and it means that this 17th World Cup, which seemed to have been ambushed by teams who came from nowhere, will be returned to one of its two greatest sources of power. Inevitably, there is an eerie feeling that the script may already have been written elsewhere.

If it should happen that Ronaldo, the ghost of a potentially great footballer in Paris four years ago, makes a decisive score against Germany, if he puts down the team with the second best record in the history of the great tournament and maintains his one-goal lead over his brilliant team-mate Rivaldo to finish as the top scorer, it will certainly be arguable that no player has ever travelled back so far, against such heavy odds, to finish on top of his world.

Of course, certain goals are beyond the 25-year-old who had a brainstorm and a full body scan before going out as the merest shell of himself in Brazil's 3-0 loss against France in the 1998 final. He cannot quite expect to walk in the company of the man who will probably always be regarded as the greatest footballer who ever lived. Whatever Ronaldo does in Yokohama, it is unlikely to project him to a place alongside Pele.

In 1966 Pele was literally kicked out of the World Cup. He was helped off the field after being hacked to defeat by a brutal, shaming Portuguese performance. Four years later, in Mexico City, he was the player of players, an astonishing compendium of skill, strength, dignity and humility in a Brazilian performance which sober judges insist can never be matched as long as the game is played.

But that is history, glorious Brazilian history, and Ronaldo is obliged to operate today under the shadow of persistent injury crisis.

Coming into this tournament one of his Brazilian admirers summed up the nation's overwhelming view of the player who, before his crisis at the Stade de France, seemed to hold the whole world of football in the palm of his hand. "We know," it was said, "that we have a magnificent thoroughbred in Ronaldo – but is he made of glass?"

No, he is made of a more durable substance than that. Still, he was required to leave the action early, as he did last week when his team-mates, deprived of the emerging, brilliant Ronaldinho, held off England with some ease.

But last night, when he gave way to Luizão in the 68th minute, it was after he had produced the moment which defined the difference between a splendidly workmanlike, and combative Turkey, and the heirs to Pele. At times fragile, erratic heirs, no doubt. Players who mix brilliance with vulnerability in a dizzying flow. But players who, in Ronaldo and his often mesmerising team-mate Rivaldo, have points of artistry and bite which always promise to carry them so far beyond any rivals.

Rivaldo might have scored three goals in a free-wheeling, spinning, extrovert assault on the Turkish defence in which the goalkeeper, Rustu Recber, performed with superb defiance until the moment his left hand came down too slowly to stop the deceptively delivered Ronaldo shot.

The move that made the difference flowed in the classic Brazilian way. Gilberto Silva collected the ball from Marcos and sped down the left flank, leaving Fatih Akyel in his wake, and when he turned it inside to Ronaldo, the striker bore down on Rustu's goal with absolute authority. The thin years of desperate, injury-dogged uncertainty in Milan just melted away. He found daylight amid the red shirts of Turkey and his quick shot caught the rueful Rustu by surprise. He raised one finger to the sky, and a slow smile broke over his round, contented face.

Turkey responded with a spirit and an application which delivered another shaft of reproach to England's reaction to similar circumstances. Hasan Sas, bald and enraged by the course of events, and Yildiray Basturk, the engine of Bayer Leverkusen, re-charged themselves to new levels of energy and enterprise. But they could not break down Brazil. They could not break the circuit which produced strikes on Rustu's goal at breathtaking speed and with an awesome simplicity.

Whether the disciplined pragmatism of Germany will have more success on Sunday night is the final intriguing question of a World Cup which simply refuses to be arranged in any logical pattern. But the instinct has to be for Brazil. Their sheer capacity and relish for instant attack seems to be the most persuasive element of all.

That, and the extraordinary aura building around Ronaldo. Before the tournament, he said: "I played in the last World Cup final because when a doctor said that they could find nothing wrong with me, I knew the Brazilian people would never forgive me if I didn't play. It was necessary to live through a nightmare. But now I believe I can win back all I lost. I believe I can find something here that I never produced before. I feel that I can reach for something that was never available before. I feel I can touch it."

It seemed like a whistle in the dark a few weeks ago, but now when Ronaldo says: "I feel a strength that is being passed around the team and all the boys have it. We believe we are going to win the World Cup," it is hard to be sceptical.

Not just because this is a remarkably talented player who has already defied formidable odds. But because he is also a Brazilian hero locked into what could well prove to be an epic football poem.

Some of the verse is a little jagged. Some of the phrases may lack an edge of total conviction. But it has a rhythm which makes the blood race and the senses reel. It is certainly Brazilian, which, of course, makes it unique.

FROM THE MARACANA TO THE STADE DE FRANCE BRAZIL'S SIX PREVIOUS WORLD CUP FINAL APPEARANCES

1950 v URUGUAY Rio de Janeiro: Lost 2-1.

There was no World Cup final in 1950, with the final placings decided on a group basis, but they will never acknowledge this in Rio, which witnessed Brazilian football's greatest reverse. The team had been together for four months, they had built the giant Maracana and had put 13 goals past Sweden and Spain in their two other second group phase games. Now they had only to draw with Uruguay in front of a world-record crowd of 199,854 to lift the Jules Rimet Trophy and were soon a goal up. But to general disbelief Uruguay scored twice in the second half and the great carnival collapsed.

1958 v SWEDEN Stockholm: Won 5-2.

A 17-year-old country boy from Minas Gerais, Pele (pictured) and Garrincha – "Little Bird" – swept Brazil towards the only World Cup they have won in Europe. After annihilating France 5-2 in the semi-finals, Pele scoring a hat-trick, against the host nation in the final, Brazil again demonstrated what would become known as "the beautiful game." The Swedes may have taken an early lead but Brazil simply tore them apart, Pele and Vava scoring two each.

1962 v CZECHOSLOVAKIA Santiago: Won 3-1.

Brazil became the only team in the history of the World Cup to retain the trophy, although they did it for the most part without Pele, who tore a muscle in a goalless draw with the Czechs in the group stages and did not recover. Garrincha took over superbly, destroying England in the quarter-final thanks in part to a goalkeeping error by Ron Springett and doing the same to the Chileans in the semis. The Czechs, unheralded and unfancied, should have been an easy victory but again Brazil fell a goal behind only for Amarildo, Zito and Vava to fire them to victory.

1970 v ITALY Mexico City: Won 4-1.

The greatest World Cup was won by the greatest team ever to grace it. Mario Zagallo, having lifted the trophy as a player, now guided the talents of Tostão, Jairzinho, Pele and Rivelino to a third World Cup. Their goalkeeper, Felix, would not have kept his place in a First Division side and only once, against England, did he keep a clean sheet. However, the irresistibility of their forward line made this irrelevant. In the final, Pele crowned his last major appearance for the selecão with a dazzling display which destroyed Italy's defensive tactics. Felix again dropped a clanger, but this time Brazil scored first in the final and kept on scoring.

1994 v ITALY Los Angeles: Won on penalties.

Nobody who saw the 1970 final could have imagined it would be nearly a quarter of a century before Brazil appeared in another. Again the opponents were Italian but, instead of a breathtaking display, this was a grindingly dull final settled only when Roberto Baggio (pictured) drove his penalty over the bar. The fabulous 1982 Brazil side would have been worthier winners but the 1994 model was more efficient, keeping five clean sheets in seven games, though it was not a triumph that lingered long in the memory.

1998 v FRANCE Paris: Lost 3-0

What should have been Ronaldo's crowning moment was instead the stage for his greatest disappointment. Weighed down by the the publicity surrounding him, he collapsed on the eve of the final, was dropped and then reinstated, only to play like a zombie. The Brazilian government ordered an inquiry into the defeat but in truth Brazil had struggled past Denmark in the quarter-finals and needed penalties to overcome the Netherlands, who were probably the outstanding side in this tournament.

By Tim Rich