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The etiquette of planet football dictates that Cristiano Ronaldo will receive good-luck text messages from team-mates past and present in the build-up to Portugal’s day of reckoning in their World Cup qualifying campaign, against Hungary tomorrow. But, where Wayne Rooney is concerned, the World Player of the Year should not hold his breath.

Asked a simple question, whether he wants Portugal and Argentina to qualify so that Ronaldo and Lionel Messi can illuminate next summer’s festival in South Africa with their talents, Rooney gives a refreshingly simple answer. “It’s great that Argentina are struggling,” he says. “It would be nice to see Portugal not there because in the last two tournaments they’ve knocked us out.”

This is the reality of a professional’s existence, behind the ritual shirtswapping, the sugar-coated texts and the kind of advertising that would have you believe that Rooney lives in a virtual world in which he is forever meeting up with Ronaldo, Kaká and Fernando Torres for impromptu Nike-endorsed kickabouts.

The respect for his fellow luminaries is there, above all for Ronaldo, his former Manchester United team-mate, now at Real Madrid, whom he unhesitatingly declares the best player in the world. But that does not mean he wants to find them in opposition in South Africa, barring England’s route to glory.

For Rooney, speaking before England — with qualification secured — flew to Dnipropetrovsk yesterday for their penultimate group six game against Ukraine, the anguish of the 2006 World Cup in Germany is still there.

The forward fractured a metatarsal only five weeks before the tournament began and, as he struggled to find his way back to fitness, his frustration boiled over in the quarter-final against Portugal, when he was sent off for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho before England, predictably, lost in a penalty shoot-out.

In the post-match press conference in Gelsenkirchen that day, Sven- Göran Eriksson, then the England head coach, urged the English media and public not to “kill” Rooney, aware that David Beckham had been castigated terribly after he was sent off for a lesser offence as England’s World Cup dreams were ended by Argentina, again on penalties, eight years earlier.

In the end, the more convenient scapegoat in 2006 was Ronaldo, whose histrionics — demanding that the referee flourish a red card and winking conspiratorially at the Portugal bench — were anathema to the supposed English virtues of fair play.

“Of course I was relieved I didn’t get the stick Becks got in 1998 and even Phil Neville did at Euro 2000 [for giving away a penalty in the 3-2 defeat by Romania],” Rooney said. “I didn’t really get any stick. Ronaldo took a lot of it and I’m pleased with that. You still get it when you play for your club sometimes, but that’s normal and I’ve always had that. Every time I’ve played for England, the fans have been great.

“I’ve never really watched the full game back, but obviously I’ve seen the incident. I was disappointed with getting sent off. I’ve always said that I never meant to stamp on him[], but when I watch it, it does look like I’ve made a stamp. Of course it’s a straight red card. I’ve got no argument about that, but I just try to move on and I’ve got a chance to put it right in the next tournament.”

A tempting parallel emerges with Diego Maradona, who was sent off in disgrace against Brazil in the 1982 World Cup, at the age of 21, and atoned in spectacular style four years later by leading Argentina to success almost single-handedly in Mexico.

For Rooney, who will be 24 this month, it is an appealing precedent, even if he says only that he is “hoping” to emulate Maradona. The priority, he is keen to stress, is that the team succeed, but he made it clear in an earlier interview with The Times that he wants this to be the year when he goes “from someone who could be a great player into someone who is a great player” — and there can be no better stage on which to make that leap than the World Cup.

He is asked who is the best player in the world. “Ronaldo,” he says. “It’s clear for everyone. I’ve watched his first few games for Madrid and he seems to have improved again. He’s passing the ball a lot more as well. I think he’s definitely the best player.”

Ronaldo always said that becoming the best on the planet was a burning ambition, almost an end in itself. For Rooney, less of an individualist, “of course it motivates you, but it’s not something I would go on about or keep talking about. You want to be the best, but I think it’s important that you concentrate on the way you play for your team first of all. I’ve always said that, if personal honours come, that’s great, but it’s important that you concentrate on the team.”

Rooney has yet to complete the same stratospheric leap that his former team-mate has made since 2006. He hits on something when he says that Ronaldo’s improvement, to a large extent, stemmed from his physical transformation, a skinny winger turning into a muscular athlete. For Rooney, who was a boy in a man’s body when he made his Everton debut at 16, improvement can come only from hours spent on the training pitch; and, of course, with experience.

Tomorrow brings a new experience for Rooney: a competitive game with nothing at stake for his team. But you know that he will approach it like he would a World Cup final — and with his fingers crossed that Ronaldo is left to contemplate a miserable summer on the beach.