Prising Cristiano Ronaldo away from Manchester United will be less of a challenge than was the case the last time Real Madrid went to war for a prince of Portuguese football.

Luis Figo’s defection from Barcelona in 2000 for a then world record fee of £38m was Real’s first transfer coup of the century, causing incredulity and pain at the Nou Camp in equal measure, and their most audacious by far. They did not do too badly over the next three years either, adding Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo (the Brazilian) and David Beckham to their superstar collection.

Does that mean Cristiano Ronaldo is destined to be Real’s next big-name scalp? Probably, though not necessarily. Real do not always get their man. Not any more, not since the departure 2½ years ago of their formidably ambitious president Florentino Perez, the father of the gloriously failed galactico project. Ramon Calderon, his distinctly uncharismatic successor, tried hard last summer to prise Kaka from Milan but failed, settling instead for Arjen Robben, who could not command a place in the Chelsea starting XI, as his big new-season signing.

They spent £70m in 2007 on new players, none of them remotely household names. It worked, in a distinctly unglamor-ous sort of way, in that a workmanlike team won the Spanish championship for the second year running, but they were easily beaten in the Champions League by Roma (who were even more easily beaten by Man-chester United) and, save for a couple of mightily celebrated victories against a deadbeat Barce-lona, the team failed to stir the blood of the Bernabeu fans. As for the Chinese, Thais, Japanese and Singaporeans, they were mad about Real when Beckham, Zidane and company were there, but have no interest whatsoever in Gago, Pepe and Higuain.

Hence, suddenly, the desperation to sign Cristiano Ronaldo, whatever he may cost. The brains behind the push to sign the Portuguese prodigy, the man who understands best of all that a club with Real’s reputation does not live by bread alone, is not Calderon, or even the club coach, Bernd Schuster. It is Jose Angel Sanchez, Real’s chief executive, originally brought to the club by Perez eight years ago as marketing director. Of all the people on the Perez team, it was Sanchez who got the message most clearly when his enigmatic boss, a business genius in his own right, would say, “the most expensive players are the cheapest”. Perez realised that the impact on the global Real Madrid brand of acquiring players who were famous beyond football itself was enormous and, cleverly administered (which was where Sanchez came in), would translate into big money. The return on the Beckham investment is still being felt now, because of the long-term deals signed during his time at the club.

What Sanchez sees, and the reason he has encouraged Calderon to spend whatever it takes to get Ronaldo, is that if Real do not give themselves a boost of galactico adrenalin, not only are they going to lose their status as the world’s richest club, but a serious risk exists of a big gap beginning to open up between them and the top British clubs, in terms of money in the bank and quality on the field.

The manner in which the Ronaldo soap opera is unfolding bears the unmistakable stamp of Perez, meaning in this case the carrier of the Perez flame, Sanchez. The script was first written for Figo, then repeated with Zidane, Ronaldo and Beckham.

You begin by approaching the player secretly, planting seeds in his mind, tempting him (and his agent) with the offer of huge money and the fabled white Real shirt. You then deploy the friendly Spanish sports press, whose reports are picked up within seconds elsewhere in Europe and the world, to generate some momentum, to get the player’s family and friends talking, to elicit quotes in support of the move from your own coach and potential future teammates, to make the whole prospect more substantial and real and enticing in the player’s mind.

If you get lucky, the target club, the one from which you are trying to filch the player, will show signs of panic, and start issuing angry threats. The good thing about that is that the player you seek may start waning in his loyalty, in so far as it may go, and cooling in his affection for the club to which he belongs.

Real have got lucky this time, prompting increasingly intemperate outbursts from Sir Alex Ferguson, who first accused Real of behaving unethically (to which a number of Spanish commentators have responded by recalling the way he set about snatching Owen Hargreaves from Bayern Munich last year) and then made what must surely be the mistake of threatening the player himself. It is hard not to imagine the cool, calculating, collected Sanchez rubbing his hands in glee when Ferguson said that he would have Ronaldo watching football from the stands all year rather than let him go to the Iberian enemy.

The objective of the exercise, now as with Real’s previous big-name signings, is to reach that checkmate point where the player unequivocally wants to move, and says as much. At which point all talk of condemning the player to Siberia, of owning him and not playing him, becomes so much guileless bluster. All the more so if the money on the table is vast, as in the case of Ronaldo (£80m is the figure mentioned in Spain).

News reports yesterday that Ronaldo would not welcome a visit from Ferguson to the Portugal national team camp sounded as if they might not be too far off the mark, which is not to say the transfer is a done deal. These summer soap operas have a habit of going on and on, and holding surprises in their tails. But as of now, the balance has swung Real’s way. Barely a month ago signing Ronaldo from United seemed like mission impossible. Today it is United who have all the work to do.

John Carlin is the author of White Angels: Beckham, Real Madrid and the New Football