THERE WAS A TIME, BACK IN the 1980s, when sports psychologists were all the rage, as ubiquitous as commercial directors and fitness specialists today. The thinking was simple: footballers are, by and large, testosterone-laden twentysomething males and, as such, have plenty of pent-up energy. The psychologist would take that energy and channel it in positive ways towards longer and better training, the building of team spirit and the establishment of self-belief.

Like Dynasty, Duran Duran and the Cold War, sports psychologists were generally left behind as the world moved into the 1990s. This was partly because too many in the game (with the exception of Glenn Hoddle, of course) saw them as a load of ineffective mumbo-jumbo merchants, partly because the task of focusing, channelling and team-building reverted to the men who had been doing it all along: the managers. However, in the case of Luis Fabiano, the finest centre forward in the Brazilian game today, coaches, managers and agents have all come up short in providing any semblance of discipline, focus and, some may say, sanity. In between breaking most of Brazil’s scoring records and eclipsing — at least statistically — everyone from Pelé to Romário, the 23-year-old São Paulo forward spends time on the analyst ’s couch in an effort to resolve the anger management issues that could well wreck his career.

Luis Fabiano’s numbers testify both to his scoring prowess and his emotional volatility. This season, he has set a Brazilian championship record, scoring 30 goals and bringing his tally since January 1, 2002, to an eye-popping 48 in 51 appearances. The flipside is that he has logged no fewer than seven red cards since the start of the season. His disciplinary record makes Alan Smith, the Leeds United striker, look like Gary Lineker, which is why São Paulo have called in the psychoanalysts: better them than the guys in white coats.

“I am happy with my therapy and feel great,” he said. “There is no shame in seeing a psychologist.” Indeed there isn’t, except the results aren’t exactly forthcoming. Two weeks ago, he was sent off again and given a four-match ban for head-butting Marquinhos, the Corinthians forward. The month before, he was banned for nearly decapitating Rodolfo, the Fluminense defender, with a vicious elbow in a cup game. What is most frustrating is that in both cases the sentence was compounded by comments that he made after the match, when, presumably, the red mist had abated.

“She’s stupid,” he said after Silvia Regina de Oliveira, the referee, had given him his marching orders against Corinthians. “Only a woman would send a player off for something like that. They don’t understand football.” And after his clash with Rodolfo he said: “I was just trying to protect the ball. But he’s gay, so he went down just like a homo.” Perhaps until the psychologist works on quelling his violent reactions, São Paulo may want to muzzle him to stop the flow of sexist, homophobic blather that does his cause no favours.

Yet amid these shenanigans, his ability is impossible to ignore. Tall, quick and powerful, he is the rarest of football animals: a prolific goalscorer who works tirelessly and unselfishly both in training and in matches. Carlos Alberto Parreira, the Brazil coach, said: “As good as he is now, and his scoring shows just how good he is, he can be even better, which is why I would call him a rough diamond who needs polishing. And to be fully polished and become one of the top four or five players in the world, he needs three things. The first is discipline, the second is more discipline and the third is even more discipline.”

Easier said than done, as Rennes found out in the summer of 2000 when they spent a club record £3 million to lure him to France from Ponte Preta, the place in Brazil where he grew up. At the time they believed they had secured a budding Ronaldo, but what they got was a budding Sylvia Plath, minus the poetry. He offered up months of depression, interspersed with temper tantrums. Brazilians call it saudade — homesickness — but with Luis Fabiano it was much more than that. He complained about everything from the food (“the French can’t cook, their cuisine is tasteless”) to the coaching (“they don’t like Brazilians”) and managed just two starts in six months. That winter, Rennes loaned him back to São Paulo in desperation.

The Brazil club would have hung on to him, but they were short of cash at the time, so he reluctantly returned to Rennes (four appearances, one start, no goals) until São Paulo finally bought him outright in January 2002. “He was physically incapable of doing anything we asked of him,” Christian Gourcuff, his coach during the second spell at Rennes, said. “There was nothing I could do to make him perform, he obviously was not interested.” São Paulo paid about £1.2 million to buy him back, an outrageous figure in the impoverished Brazil game. Yet by all accounts, it was money well spent and it illustrates just how much the club believes in him. The idea is to sell him on this summer and, according to reports in Brazil, he is being tracked by Manchester United, AC Milan, Barcelona, Real Betis, Inter Milan and Chelsea. His release price is set at £9.4 million and, even in the present economic climate, it is a very reasonable one . . . provided that he sorts himself out. And that part is in the hands of the shrinks.

Gourcuff is highly sceptical. “I am very surprised to read that these clubs are interested in him,” he said. “The only clubs who should sign him are clubs who do not value team spirit and hard work. It is incomprehensible for me to see him doing well and playing for Brazil.”

Many draw a parallel between Luis Fabiano and Edmundo, another volatile Brazilian genius, whose scoring record he has just broken. Edmundo’s feats include countless physical attacks on referees, opponents, policemen, reporters and team-mates, as well as a conviction for vehicular manslaughter and, on the bizarre side, a charge of animal abuse for getting a monkey drunk at his one-year-old son’s birthday party (the charge was later, mercifully, dropped). Others may point to Paul Gascoigne or George Best, players whose careers failed to live up to the expectations engendered by their sublime talents.

Yet Luis Fabiano, for now at least, appears to be different. Unlike Best and Gascoigne, he lacks the self-destructive gene. And, unlike Edmundo — who five years ago looked me in the eye and told me: “I’m the greatest player in the world, there is nothing wrong with me and the only reason you Europeans don’t see this is that you are all crazy” — he doesn’t live in a world of self-delusion. He knows he has a problem. “I was too young at Rennes,” he said. “It wasn’t entirely my fault if things did not work out. I know I have to get some help, which is why I am seeing a psychologist. I will conquer this problem. Just as I became a better footballer through hard work in training, I will become a more disciplined footballer through hard work of a different kind.” São Paulo certainly hope so, which is why the club are footing the bill for his treatment. And, if Luis Fabiano can exorcise his red mist, sports psychologists might just come back into fashion.