“IT’S ALWAYS a mistake to write off Germany,” the serious pundits inevitably pronounce, just after some bullet-headed blond son of a pig farmer has smashed home the winner in the 92nd minute. Well, no, actually it isn’t - in recent tournaments it’s been absolutely correct to write off the Germans, even in the 2002 World Cup, because, from time to time, they’re not that good, admirable though they may always be in terms of those stereotypical qualities of organisation and discipline. That’s the problem with stereotypes, odious though they may be, often they are bang on.

What is always a mistake, however, but is still always done, is to “big up” the Portuguese and Spanish. Spain have no defence; when the ball crosses the halfway line you can see the terror in their eyes and the beginnings of raw panic. Portugal go one better – they have no defence and no attack either. No, as Gary Neville, an unexpectedly first-rate analyst put it, plan B. If Ronaldo and Deco can’t skip through the opposition defence, they’re buggered. And it’s easy to stop them doing this by crowding them out and, every so often, kicking them very hard on the shins. If you kick Ronaldo long enough, he’ll give up the ghost and adopt that petulant, put-upon expression. This is why he is not in the same league as George Best, who rarely allowed himself to be bullied and would give as good as he got and sometimes a lot more. Anyway, there was never any power up front for Portugal, who were well beaten by much the better side and I laughed so hard at the end that beer shot out of my nose and all over the carpet. Hell of a mess, but worth it.

So Ronaldo is gone, but is not yet gone. Either from Manchester United or indeed from the tournament; wonderful games are played that would captivate even the most surly armchair fan, and yet the talk is all of whether this defeated Portuguese moppet is right to be, supposedly, leaving Old Trafford for Madrid. “The train only passes once,” the equally defeated (and tactically suspect) manager Luiz Felipe Scolari reportedly told Ronaldo, urging him to clamber on board for what would be the, uh, chance of a lifetime. A wonderful chance indeed – to leave the current European Champions, and the champions of what we are told is Europe’s most competitive domestic league, for a side that last season was eliminated in the first knockout stage and has not won a European title for a good six years. Yep, chances like those don’t come along very often. Jump, Cristiano, jump.

Is he worth it, that £80m Real Madrid are supposedly willing to pay for him? You suspect that in marketing terms he probably is; widely regarded as the second-best player in the world and lucky the best, Lionel Messi, has a face like a shovel. There will be many “fans”, from Seoul to Santiago, queuing to buy a shirt with his name on it. However, he does not have the personality of Real’s last bona fide marketing superstar, David Beckham - incidentally, how often have you heard “he doesn’t have the personality of David Beckham”? Not often, I would bet - nor is he, as a human being, especially likeable. His tenuous grasp of the English language - even more tenuous than Beckham’s - may explain, in part, why he frequently comes across as a haughty, arrogant half-wit. On the other hand, a command of English has become as crucial in marketing terms as those annoyingly high cheekbones may be.

Is he worth that much money as a footballer for that almost incidental stuff he does on the pitch? This is almost a pointless question, the laws of football economics operating on a distant planet from the one with which we are familiar. You might say that if Seth Johnson was worth £40,000 a week five years ago then Ronaldo is worth at least eighty million quid now. He is extravagantly talented, but those dark intimations that he loses his footing, literally and metaphorically, when gracing the biggest stages, seem to have a bit of substance. He was not particularly effective in this tournament, too easily harried into a state of discouragement, too often hovering around the fringes rather than grabbing hold of a game. No footballer is “worth” eighty million quid; but even by football’s grotesque and distorting economics, Ronaldo may be overvalued.

But still, he is right to go. On this point he should have our unbridled sympathy – he is justified in the indignation he shows when harassed about his loyalty to Sir Alex Ferguson. Why should he show loyalty? Ferguson shows none whatsoever to his own players; they are shoved on the market regardless of their feelings and tenure if SAF no longer has a use for them. Further, Sir Alex has spent the past 15 years poaching the world’s best players for astronomical sums of money from clubs that do not wish to let them go. It is a double hypocrisy to complain about the behaviour of Real Madrid.