After 12 days of intense training in the city of Itu, on Tuesday Ronaldo is looking forward to his return to the soccer world.

With his good sense of humor, the athlete quoted Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to explain the difficult task that other teams' defense will have trying to guard the fit striker.

"My motivation is to play soccer. My love for the game is immense. For this reason, I am making a sacrifice that will pay off. When I am on the field, I am the happiest man on the planet. Someone is going to have to pay for all this hard work and suffering. As Lula says, someone is going to get fucked," joked the athlete.

The adversaries of the Corinthians soccer club will not have to worry about defending Ronaldo too soon. Content with the results and his progress in Itu during the team's pre-season training, Ronaldo is cautious about setting a date for his return. He stated that he hopes to play by February or even March.

"My progress has been marvelous. I am losing lots of weight and gaining lots of strength. However, we still don't know when I will play. There is no way to plan this kind of thing. Unfortunately, I will not play on the 17th or during the month of January. It may not even be in February," warned Ronaldo.

The club had hoped that Ronaldo would be ready to play in the team's first appearance of the year. On January 17, Corinthians will receive the Argentinean team, Estudiantes de la Plata. The team from Sao Paulo is going to fork over nearly US 200,000 for the friendly.

(Xinhua News Agency January 14, 2009)