Ronaldo tries to ease pressure over debut

Brazilian striker Ronaldo, who is trying to regain fitness after recovering from a minor calf injury, has tried to play down speculation surrounding a possible debut for Real Madrid in Sunday's league match against Alaves.

"If I play on Sunday, that will be great, but if not there will be plenty of other Sundays," Ronaldo told reporters after training on Thursday.

Ronaldo, who joined Real from Inter Milan for around 45 million euros ($44.55 million) just before the start of the season, has not played a competitive game since scoring both goals in Brazil's World Cup final win over Germany at the end of June.

"The most important thing is what the club president (Florentino Perez) has already said and that is that I have signed for Real for a long time," said the 26-year-old player.

"People expect a lot of me and I certainly don't want to play when I am only 80 percent. Everything has fallen behind schedule because of the problems with my calf, but once I start to play no one will be able to stop me."