The Barcelona midfielder was filming an advert in front of the Santiago de Compostela in Madrid when disaster struck.

One minute Ronaldinho was shaping up to perform a spectacular scissor kick, the next there was the sound of tinkling glass familiar to schoolboys everywhere.

Ronaldinho's only saving grace was that the broken pane in the cathedral's Portico de la Gloria (Portal of Glory) did not date from the 1100s.

The cathedral in the northern region of Galicia contains relics of St James, Spain's patron saint, and is the destination for thousands of pilgrims each year following the Camino de Santiago trail.

Local newspaper La Voz de Galicia quoted the advert's director Emil Samper as saying: "It was my fault. I asked Ronaldinho to hit the ball as hard as he could and he had the bad luck to hit the window."

You can bet David Seaman won't be shedding too many tears.