HE may only have been half fit and with only half a haircut but you would have had to be a half-wit not to back Ronaldo to do the business for Brazil yesterday.

This particular boy from Brazil is set to win the Golden Boot and put right everything that went wrong in the final in France four years ago.

Our very own golden boy Michael Owen has said he was not fit for England's last game against Brazil and, although he did manage to score, boy did it show.

The pace that we had hoped would be the key to unlocking Brazil's supposedly suspect defence was missing and he was a dejected figure as he trudged off in the second half.

He did not look like scoring other than when he accepted the gift from Lucio and he did little to help others create chances.

Contrast that with Ronaldo. He scored a great goal with a toe-poke, straight out of the playground football book, but also created a host of other opportunities for others to net.

My personal favourite was the lay-off to Cafu in the first half that offered the skipper the chance to duplicate arguably the best goal of all time, Carlos Alberto's fourth against Italy in the 1970 final.

Unlike his predecessor as captain, Cafu took an extra touch, narrowing the angle and allowing the impressive Rustu Recber to save rather than rifling home a unstoppable first time shot - what a shame.

On another occasion he put in Edilson who spent most of the match trying to prove that not all Brazilians are brilliant, the little man looking as unthreatening as the big striker Serginho did in the otherwise superb side in 1982.

Ronaldo's contributions were made despite the fact that, like Owen, he was a doubt before the game.

My very own World Cup conspiracy theory is that his ridiculous new "Barnet" was a ploy to deflect attention from any problems he had in regard to his fitness.

After all, he knew that Trisha look-a-like Ronaldinho was out of the semi-final and so there had to be one crime against hairdressing on the pitch.

What is left appears to be like a bit of Velcro glued to the front of his head, offering the chance of adding something similar to the ball, landing it on his head and he can then stroll through the defence and score.

Perhaps if Owen had swapped his somewhat staid style for something a bit more daring, a parting on the other side maybe, it would have helped his game.

It was not to be and so it will be Ronaldo and not Owen who will be taking on the Germans.

Mind you, he will have to go some to match the feats of young Michael when he took them on in a World Cup game last September.