Reports that Kaka, the golden boy of Brazilian football, had been offered a bank-busting move to Manchester City were greeted with a mixture of delight, horror and scepticism in Brazil.
As rumours of the possible deal were splashed across the front pages of Brazilian news sites and sports blogs, most commentators dismissed the idea that Kaka might swap Milan for Manchester.
"I don't believe it," said Juca Kfouri, one of Brazil's best-known sports writers. A move to Manchester City would be like Kaka "shooting his own foot", he added. "From what I know about his career Kaka won't swap Milan for Manchester City. He certainly doesn't need the money."
Rafael Dias from the football blog Gol Impedido agreed: "I don't think it's likely that Milan will accept, even less that Kaka will."
Humberto Peron, a football writer from the Folha de Sao Paulo, also said he doubted Kaka would swap the "certain for the doubtful". "Until they signed Robinho, Manchester City were always treated as a small team here in Brazil," he said. "We didn't pay any attention to them. Financially it might be good for him [but] ... the doubt is how long he might take to adjust to the English game."
As Brazil's press filled with reports that Manchester City had sent a "tropa de choque" or "strike team" to Italy to close a deal, some said they relished the idea of seeing 26-year-old Kaka team up with fellow Brazilian Robinho. Lancenet, a major Brazilian football site, described Manchester City as a "heavyweight emerging [power]".
Many expressed relief, however, when Kaka appeared to reject a move claiming he wanted to "grow old" at Milan. "Kaka might be foolish but not to the extent that he would swap Milan for the 'all powerful' Manchester City, who with Robinho in their side are fighting not to go down," wrote one blogger.
Kfouri said that until Brazilian football clubs underwent dramatic restructuring it would be impossible for them to attract Brazilian players of Kaka's quality. "The Brazilian clubs cannot compete because they are not professional, they are very poorly organised." Only when Brazil's teams broke free of the "cartolas" or strongmen would they be able to compete for such players, he added.
Unlike the rags to riches tales of many Brazilian footballers, Kaka was not born into the slums of Rio or Sao Paulo but to a middle class family from Brazil's capital Brasilia. His meteoric rise to fame began while he was studying at a Baptist school, aged eight. Spotting his talent, one of his teachers phoned his parents and asked them to place him in an escolinha, a football school for kids. Soon after he was training with a coach from the Alphaville Tennis Club, a chic country club for Sao Paulo's rich and famous. From there he moved to Sao Paulo FC, turning professional in January 2001.
Kaka is famed as a deeply religious player and a member of the controversial evangelical church Igreja Renascer em Cristo or Reborn in Christ Church. In 2007 he donated his Fifa World Player of the Year trophy to the church, whose leaders were recently jailed in the United States for money smuggling.
Kaka's reputation as a clean-cut family man means that, were he to move to Manchester City, he would be better equipped to deal with the British tabloids than many players. "[The paparazzi] is a bigger worry for those who do the wrong things," the Brazilian midfielder said in a 2007 interview with the evangelical magazine Enfoque Gospel.
"The other day they [the paparazzi] caught me with my mum in the street and they put the headline: 'Who is this who is next to him? Could it be his new lover?' Then underneath there was another sentence saying that it was just my mum going shopping with me!"