Too much, too young
Just seven days ago, Ronaldo flashed his once-familiar buck-toothed grin at the world's press. "I'm going through a magic moment," he told them after his son Ronald's birth. "I'm back playing, I have a son. Life is wonderful!"
At last, Ronaldo seemed genuinely happy. All the injuries and frustrations that had tormented him since the 1998 World Cup Final were evaporating before our eyes. The world's greatest footballer was ready to return.
Last night he made his comeback. But just seven minutes after replacing Roberto Baggio in the first leg of the Italian Cup final against Lazio, he was lying on the ground, his face contorted in agony, clutching the same right knee that had caused him problems all season.
And as he woke this morning every newspaper from London to Lahore was asking the same question: after being stretchered off yet again, is Ronaldo's career finished?
Of course it's too early to say. But one thing that can't be disputed is that in football - like life itself - you often reap what you sow. And the fact is that Ronaldo's injury woes are a direct result of playing too much football, too young.
A look at his career shows that football is pretty much all he's being doing ever since he was spotted at fourteen by Brazilian legend Jairzinho.
At seventeen he was playing in the Brazilian First Division for Cruzeiro Belo Horizonte, scoring a phenomenal 58 goals in an equally phenomenal 60 games during the 1993/1994 season.
After that he moved to Europe, where neither the goals - nor the rate of games, slackened. At PSV (56 league matches, 55 goals) and Barcelona (37 league matches, 34 goals) Ronaldo's innate ability to glide past an awkward challenge coupled with his sheer physical power helped him smash goal-scoring record after goal-scoring record. Even at Inter, his record of 54 goals in 90 games is more prolific than most.
But all those matches, coupled with the myriad must-attend Brazilian friendlies and photo-shoots organised by Nike - who were desperate to get every last ounce of publicity out of the money they'd spent sponsoring him - have taken their toil on both Ronaldo's physical and psychological state.
Perhaps the only surprise about his collapse before the 1998 World Cup final was that it didn't happen sooner. For most footballers a long-time injury is now part of the job, along with the flash cars and fast women. More matches inevitably bring more injuries.
In 1998 when Fifa banned the tackle from behind, they called it the Van Basten law, in memory of the great Dutch striker who had his career criminally shortened by injury.
Recently the world's governing body announced plans for a world football calender to allow players a break from the stresses of the game. Let's just hope - if it's ever introduced - they won't have to call it the Ronaldo law, in memory of a brilliant Brazilian whose career never fulfilled what it had promised.