"I don't want to say anything negative about the game. Real Madrid have a great squad full of great players and I've come here to win lots of league titles."

The teenager said he was not intimidated by the competition he would face at his new club where he will be battling it out with Ronaldo, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Robinho and Raul for a place in the starting lineup.

"I'm not scared at all. All I want to do is to convince the coach and my team mates through my hard work that I'm worth a place in the squad. I will be doing all I can to learn from the great players around me," he said.

Higuain shot to prominence last May when he scored twice as River Plate beat Corinthians 3-1 to knock the Brazilian champions out of the Libertadores Cup.

He struck twice more in a 3-1 win over arch-rivals Boca Juniors in October and notched a spectacular goal in a 1-1 draw at Velez Sarsfield earlier this month to end the Argentine championship as his club's top scorer with nine goals.

Higuain's father Jorge played professional football in France for Brest where Gonzalo was born in 1987.

Higuain was 10 months old when he moved to Argentina with his family and has lived there ever since.

Last month he was called up by France coach Raymond Domenech for a friendly against Greece but his father sent the French Federation a fax saying he did not want to play for the country for the time being.

The player would not make any commitments about whether his future loyalties lay with France or Argentina.

"I don't know at the moment," he said when asked which country he would prefer to play for. "I'm just trying to take things one day at a time and concentrate on playing football and leave the rest up to my representative."

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