RONALDO WON HIS 100th cap for Brazil as they took on Australia last night. He looked more as if he had been awarded his 100th pie, that is if we’re only counting this week. The 100th cap comes after an official recount; the pie count is the evidence of my own eyes and that of everybody else in the stadium.

The miracle of it all is that he actually looked a lot better — that is to say thinner — than he did in Brazil’s opening match, in which they struggled to beat Croatia by a single goal. In that game, Ronaldo looked positively corpulent. I have never before seen a footballer who needed to lose weight from his head.

Ronaldo’s weight — and by extension his form — has been the subject of national debate and the President himself has become involved.

He took a well-merited hammering from the press after his first performance, in which he looked more like a pitch-invader than part of the team: a fully-clad streaker in canary yellow dealing with some hazy dream-memory that he had once been a footballer.

It seems astonishing to be writing that a Brazil team is carrying a passenger, let alone a passenger of such distinction. For Ronaldo is a World Cup winner, a scorer of 12 goals at World Cup finals, a finisher of waspish precision, noted above all for his explosiveness, his suddenness, his ability to steal a goal and a game in a single moment of light-speed inspiration. That’s the Ronaldo of blessed memory.

This week he has been suffering dizzy spells. Medical checks found nothing. The team doctor did not refute the possibility that it was stress-related. He has also been spending some quality time in the sauna. Word from the camp is that he has lost seven pounds in fewer days. Certainly, he looked much trimmer — even his head was slimmer.

But this kind of dramatic treatment of your body comes at a price. In the first half, Ronaldo looked almost as dazed as he did in the World Cup final in 1998, when he played — some alleged under commercial pressure from sponsors — despite suffering a mild fit before the match.

He had two clear chances in the first half last night, chances he would have buried four years ago. But he fluffed one volley when clean through and barely managed to make contact with the ball on another perfect opportunity.

He did get the ball in the net but was offside, the play had been long stopped, and he got a thoroughly deserved booking for being an eejit.

When you are at the World Cup finals and one of your star players is clearly unfit and out of form, a coach needs him either to recover all his form in an instant, or to play so badly that there is a bomb-proof case for dropping him.

Anything between those extremes makes for desperately hard decision- making, as one Sven- Göran Eriksson is more than aware. So Ronaldo’s assist for Brazil’s opening goal was as much a blow for Carlos Alberto Parreira, the Brazil coach, as it was a boon.

Ronaldo’s ponderous trick was watched with an air of mild interest by a stationary Australia defence and Adriano put the ball into the net for a pretty soft goal.

That moment really shouldn’t distract Parreira from the obvious decision. Ronaldo, though better than he was in his previous game, was mostly immobile, and sluggish when he did move. His touch was frequently dreadful. His vision was poor, he was off the pace in his thinking and his action. It was a performance without spark, without life, without relish, without devil. It was the performance of a player who has gone over the hill.

Brazil looked ten times brighter after Ronaldo was replaced by Robinho. Mind you, that’s still about 100 times dimmer than Argentina, who have set down the marker-performance in this World Cup. Brazil needed to lay down a make’em-tremble performance yesterday — and fell a long way short.

Brazil, the Melchester Rovers of international football, are at present showing all the signs of believing their own mythology. Indeed, they are playing with stars who seem to have been around almost as long as Roy Race and Blackie.

This was a desperately disappointing performance — and Brazil won’t win the World Cup in their present state. It’s revolution or bust.

I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest authority on football tactics but it seems to me that it is a good idea to have as few bald old geezers in your team as you possibly can.

With Ronaldo, Adriano and Roberto Carlos in his starting line-up, Parreira clearly holds to the exact opposite philosophy. After yesterday’s peformance, I’m not sure it’s viable.