They called him El Principe, the prince. The title made it sound as though the Argentine Fernando Redondo was not quite – or not yet – the real thing, not up there with soccer’s genuine royalty, Der Kaiser Franz Beckenbauer or O Rei Pele.

A prince in waiting, then – but the wait was long and baffling. The coronation never arrived and the waiting came to a quiet end last week when Redondo announced his retirement from the game.

From the very beginning, Redondo was an enigma. He came from the wrong background: His family was upper middle class, quite different from the humble beginnings of most of Argentina’s great players.

In 1985, as a 16-year-old, he joined Argentinos Juniors, the club where, nine years earlier, another 16-year-old, Diego Maradona, had made his professional debut. Maradona, the impudent street kid from a poor working-class family, had made an immediate and tempestuous impact in 1976. Redondo arrived more slowly, less dramatically. By 1990 the word was around that maybe, just maybe, Argentinos had come up with another Maradona. If not another Maradona, certainly another highly skilled left-footer.

River Plate tried to sign him, but Tenerife – an unfashionable Spanish club – got there first. Redondo went to Europe and after four years at Tenerife, joined Real Madrid in 1994.

And the rest is, or ought to be, history. But nothing was that simple about Redondo. What he wanted to do was to play soccer his way, and his way only. Inevitably, he ran into problems with his coaches, because Redondo’s way – unhurried, thoughtful almost to the point of being intellectual – was viewed by many coaches as being simply old-fashioned. A constant criticism of Redondo was that he was too slow.

But the criticisms were never whole-hearted because everyone could see that Redondo had superb skill on the ball and that he could do what few players have ever been able to do: He could control a game, impose his own pace, and shape events on the field.

“He was the leader,” the former Real Madrid coach Vicente del Bosque said of him. “He established the style of play that has characterized Real Madrid in recent years.”

But if he was appreciated at Real, this was rarely the case with the Argentine national coaches. Redondo played only 29 times for Argentina. He played in just one World Cup, the ill-fated 1994 edition in the U.S. in which Argentina’s excellent chances of success were scuttled when Maradona was thrown out of the competition after a positive drug test.

Redondo could have played on Carlos Bilardo’s World Cup team in 1990, but he spurned the opportunity because he objected to what he saw as Bilardo’s physical, defensive tactics. In 1998, he had another opportunity, but this time the coach was Daniel Passarella, a masterful, uncompromising defender in his playing days, whose coaching methods bristled with a stern machismo. Passarella let it be known that he didn’t approve of long hair – and the long-haired Redondo duly withdrew himself.

But the coiffure was surely an excuse. The real reason was, yet again, the style of play and the fact that Passarella wanted him to assume a more defensive role than he liked. Redondo saw himself as the classic Argentine no. 5, the central midfielder who orchestrates the team.

“I play that position because it’s the best,” he once said. “Everything that happens on the field passes through that position. If Christ had been a player, he would have chosen no. 5.”

That was precisely the sort of pronouncement that brought on the accusations of arrogance and snobbery. Redondo remained supremely indifferent to the sniping, and at Real Madrid the true Redondo flourished. During his six years there, the club won two Spanish league titles and the European Cup twice.And it won with consummate style and skill.

A breathtaking, unforgettable play in 2000 summed up the genius of Redondo. It happened in a game in which Real Madrid outclassed Manchester United at Old Trafford. Re dondo, with an easy swivel of his body, turned his back to defender Henning Berg, back-heeled the ball through Berg’s legs, sped effortlessly on to catch up with the ball, and delivered a perfect pass for Raul to score the winning goal. The United fans, knowledgeable and generous, stood to applaud what must surely stand as one of soccer’s greatest moments.

The skill and the coolness of the move was typical of Redondo, but the speed with which it was all done gave the perfect answer to those who said he was slow. The words that invariably surface in descriptions of Redondo are elegant and graceful. They are words that do not often get used in the modern game, which is dominated by speed and strength.

Jose Pekerman, the current coach of Argentina, once said of Redondo: “He has the style that the Argentine fans want to see. He is the symbol of Argentine soccer.”

More than that, Redondo was the very soul of the sport. He was not just a superb athlete who could kick a ball. He was the supreme soccer artist. He brought the originality – and that dreaded arrogance – of the artistic temperament, the complete confidence of the master who knows that his way is the right way, and who will brook no attempts to make him alter his ways.

While Redondo dazzled on the field, his private life was just plain ordinary. A married man with three children, no scandal, no gossip, and no whining when the tail-end of his career produced nothing but disappointment. Traded by Real Madrid to AC Milan in 2000, Redondo promptly suffered a serious knee injury. Since then, he struggled to return to the top-level game, but things did not work out.

In 2001, after a year at Milan and not a single minute played, Redondo went to the club’s vice-president, Adriano Galliani. His request was surprising, shocking almost. He asked the club not to continue paying him – they should resume only when he was fit to play.

But Milan stuck by Redondo and paid him as he struggled to regain fitness. It never happened, and last week Redondo, at age 35, officially halted his career.

In reality, it had ended on May 24, 2000, when Redondo led Real Madrid to victory in the European Cup final against Valencia. That was the last time we saw this wonderful player in full flow, El Principe with his rare, aristocratic skills invigorating a sport that too often these days fails to sparkle.

The memory has a double sadness because it may have marked the end of the road not just for Redondo, but for the whole concept of the classic Argentine no. 5.The next Redondo is nowhere to be seen.