Cristiano Ronaldo unveiled as Real Madrid player to hysteria at Bernabeu
Part coronation, part Papal Mass, with a dash of rock concert thrown in. Eighty-five thousand Real Madrid fans on Monday night attended the church of Cristiano Ronaldo at the Bernabeu before 50 or so delirious stage invaders chased him from it. It only served to add to the atmosphere. This was the ascension of Cristiano.

Cristiano Ronaldo unveiled as Real Madrid player to hysteria at Bernabeu
Doing a little turn on the catwalk: Cristiano Ronaldo struts his stuff as he is introduced to the Real Madrid fans at the Bernabeu
Hysteria greets Cristiano Ronaldo as he is unveiled as a Real Madrid player
Crowd control: around 80,000 fans packed into the Bernabeu to celebrate the unveiling of Cristiano Ronaldo as a Manchester United player Photo: AFP

After three long years of waiting, Madrid have their man, and their man has Madrid. “This is my new home,” he said. As if the six-year £200,000-a-week contract was not greeting enough, he has the sight of a stadium genuflecting in his image to greet him. Welcome home.

He has left home before, of course, but he insists it was with the blessing of his scorned father. “It was a happy goodbye,” he said. “Sir Alex Ferguson knew I always wanted to play for Madrid. I went to Manchester and spoke with him and he was happy. The fans, my team-mates and friends, and Sir Alex understand my decision. This is my dream.

“We were joking about me playing against Manchester United in the final at the Bernabeu. He said he would set Patrice Evra against me to kick me out of the game.

“When I said I would stay at United in June, it was because there was no reason to believe I wouldn’t. But things change, presidents, people’s opinions, everything. The clubs reached an agreement and now I’m here, and I’m very happy.”

He will have had few longer days, spending much of his time before his unveiling dotting i’s and crossing t’s. He landed just after midday at Barajas airport, by private jet, before being whisked to the Sanitas La Moraleja Hospital in the north of the city to pass his medical before a rather stilted, staged lunch with Florentino Perez.

For a man desperate for adulation, for worship, it was the debut he had dreamed about. Fans queued for hours to get inside, with a further 10,000 locked out when the gates to the stadium shut at 8.40pm. They chanted his name, they cheered the video montages – never again will Stoke City feature so prominently at the Bernabeu – and they waited.

And waited, just as they have since his Madrid dream was first made public in 2006, in the aftermath of Portugal’s fractious win over England in the World Cup. First, Alfredo di Stefano and Eusebio appeared. Then Perez himself, never a man to shun a moment in the limelight, strode out. Then, to the strains of Strauss and Puccini – with a dash of Spanish heavy metal thrown in – Ronaldo, bedecked in white, the No 9 on his back, appeared. The fervour reached religious proportions.

He strode onto the pitch, blinded by thousands of flashbulbs, hugged Perez and stood on stage, to the left of Eusebio and Di Stefano, consciously in the pose of Superman, hands on hips, eyes heavenwards, as Perez introduced “one of the greatest players of all time”.

To the Real Madrid president, his £80 million capture can “make millions of dreams come true,” representing “the unstoppable force of hope.” It was the sort of rhetoric of which such an occasion deserved.

No wonder, when he finally spoke, Ronaldo was forced to wait as the cheers, the chants of “Cristiano” died down. He beamed, soaking up the adulation which, almost as much as the multi-million pound salary, tempted him to leave Old Trafford.

He craves undiluted worship. Now, heightened by the will-he, won’t-he soap opera of the last three years, he has it.

“Good evening,” he said, in accented Spanish. “I am going to speak to you like a friend who is very happy to be here. This is the completion of my boyhood dream, to be a Real Madrid player.”

Not a natural raconteur, perhaps, but he had the crowd in the palm of his hands, leading them in a chorus of Hala Madrid before soaking up the rapturous applause of every corner of the stadium. This was his apotheosis to the galactico pantheon. Not even a boy asked on stage to name his favourite player – the answer, of course, was Kaka – could spoil it.

Nor could chaos. A trickle of fans broke through the security cordon. Ronaldo, initially forgiving, was rushed down the tunnel, although

Di Stefano – and nine European Cups – were forgotten in the rush. Still, they are the past. Ronaldo is the future.