When you see a 10-year-old standing next to his dad screaming abuse at some anonymous team bus, with its blacked out windows and barely-glimpsed silhouettes inside, football has failed. When you see a 10-year-old trying to do a Cristiano Ronaldo step-over, football has won. So, Kaka to Manchester City. What's not to like?
But, ye gods, there are some miserable people out there. The death of football, one bloke called it. An impossibly rich man attempts to spend £100million of his personal fortune to bring a truly great footballer into our game in a way that opens up the domestic competition, and this is a bad thing?
This is not Kaka to Manchester United or Kaka to Liverpool, in a way that would have everybody moping around thinking the title was sewn up for the next five years. This is Kaka, possibly, to Manchester City, a move that may one day inspire a further challenge to the domination by the elite four of English football. At the very least it is another great player turning out in a league already blessed by a few.
Yet still a puritanical determination to resist pleasure continues. We have become spoiled by our easy access to greatness, by the fact we can turn on the television and view the finest players from around Europe every week. We have forgotten what a thrill, what a privilege it is to then see those same players in the flesh.
If Kaka comes to Manchester, English football will need only Lionel Messi for the full set. This is a unique moment in the history of our game and how stereotypical of us to find a reason to carp. Kaka, Ronaldo and Fernando Torres may be coming to town. Oh, woe.
