Rua General Cesar Obino is like any other suburban Brazilian street. It has a bar, a primary school and an Evangelical church. An old woman sits in the sun on the steps outside her home. Children are kicking a football around. World Cup decorations - flags and yellow-and-green ribbons - hang across the road. The Eiffel Tower is painted on the ground with the word "BRASIL".This is the road where Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima lived for 17 years. In 1994 he moved to Europe and, losing his middle and surnames, became one of world's most famous sportsmen. Today he faces the most important match of his 21 years when Brazil meet Holland for a place in the World Cup final.For the residents of Rua General Cesar Obino, however, life is little changed. For them Ronaldo's career path is difficult to comprehend. It seems no time at all since the shy boy nicknamed Dadado - Gimme - used to hang out with them on the street. "No one ever thought he would be the best in the world," says his old friend Marcio Perez, 22,who was in the army but is now unemployed.One of Ronaldo's cousins, Carlos Eduardo Barata, an 18-year-old trainee chef, says: "I still can't believe it. A few years ago he was riding around here on a bicycle; now he has a Ferrari."Sixteen of Ronaldo's close relatives live at the address in the poor Rio de Janeiro suburb of Bento Ribeiro where he was brought up, a messy plot of land with three small box homes. A paper sign taped to the stone gatepost reads: "Kites. For sale."The doorbell does not work. Only when one of the boys playing street football jumps on the wall and shouts does anyone emerge from the house at the rear of the yard. It is Ronaldo's aunt, Adriana, who is selling paper kites, painted with the Brazilian strip, for the equivalent of 15p.When Ronaldo was there he slept on the sofa in the living-room which he shared with his older brother Nelio. His mother was a shop assistant at a snack bar and his father an engineer with the telephone company. Now they live apart inwell-furnished homes in rich parts of Rio. Other relatives stayed in Bento Ribeiro. Adriana and her husband Roger, a policeman, now live in Ronaldo's house with their daughter.Their World Cup decorations are modest in Rio terms: three Brazilian flags hanging on the outside walls. Inside there are no signs that the family has any connection with the player whose face is on virtually every street-corner billboard. There are no photographs, no posters. The only influence of Ronaldo is a Nike T-shirt on the clothes line in the courtyard - a gift when he paid a visit at Christmas.The homes are simply furnished. There is no telephone but the family has a large freezer and a decent-sized television set connected to cable. Five family members from three generations are watching a cartoon. Giselle, looks disconcertingly like her big cousin, sharing the same toothy grin.Another cousin, Suzi Pinheiro Barata, 28, says: "Everyone always asks what he has bought us. But generally he doesn't help the family. He'snot a bad person but he's very young. He's just doing what his business people want at the moment. The gate was falling down so we rebuilt it. People thought it was from his money but we paid it ourselves."Like the rest of Brazil, Ronaldo's family will be cheering him on today and hoping that his pledge to score most goals in the tournament will finally be realised.
