Ronaldo welcomed by 80,000 fans

In a scene worthy of the second coming, Real Madrid fans packed the Bernabeu Stadium yesterday to welcome their new galactico Cristiano Ronaldo after he had completed a medical and other formalities of his £80m world record transfer.

If anyone in Manchester was still unclear why Ronaldo should move from United, they had their answer: 80,000 Real fans chanted his name and cheered the giant video montages of his goals and his fancy footwork as they waited for the £200,000-a-week player to show himself. As the Daily Telegraph reported: "For a man desperate for adulation, for worship, it was the debut he had dreamed about."

Ronaldo finally came on stage with the man who had negotiated his purchase, Real president Florentino Perez (above), and the 1960s star who had handed him his new Number 9 shirt, the great Alfredo di Stefano.

As the cheers died down, Ronaldo, dressed in the famous all-white strip of Real, said in Spanish: "Good evening. I am going to speak to you like a friend who is very happy to be here. This is the completion of my boyhood dream, to be a Real Madrid player."

At a press conference afterwards, Ronaldo said he expected a difference playing in Spain's La Liga after England's Premier League. "I expect a different league. I have played six years in the Premier League, it is very different. It is faster and players are strong but here the small teams and the medium teams try and play football," he said.

Despite his long summer holiday in California, where he was photographed for the celebrity magazines cavorting with the likes of Paris Hilton, he passed his medical with flying colours. "Ronaldo is in perfect condition," said Carlos Diez, Real Madrid's medical chief. "He has an extraordinary cardiac and lung capacity." ·