November 6 – Cristiano Ronaldo has retired from international football after 23 years, ending his career in Portugal following a falling out with current national team coach Jorge Jesus, his former coach at Al-Nassar FC in Saudi Arabia.
The 41-year-old leaves with 146 goals in 234 appearances, both men’s international records. He announced the decision in a video on Instagram, a day before Jesus named his squad for the Nations League games against Denmark and Wales.
“The day has come for the Portuguese people to return the number seven jersey of the national team that belongs to all of us,” he said. “I never felt it was exclusively mine.”
He added: “Goals come and go, trophies end up in museums and records are eventually broken. But there’s one thing time can never erase: the place we hold in people’s hearts.”
The decision comes after a 30-day ban and a €255 fine for leaving the squad after being benched against Norway. He apologized to his companions, but not to Jesus.
The federation called him “the greatest player of all time” and promised a fitting tribute. Ronaldo will continue at Al-Nassr, chasing a 1,000th career goal. It’s at 985.
I was in Lisbon in 2004 when a 19-year-old Ronaldo cried on the pitch after Greece beat Portugal in the Euro final. He was all speed, tricks and nerves, a kid who looked like he could beat anyone. Twenty years later, I saw him at Euro 2024 in Germany. The legs were gone. He missed a penalty against Slovenia and cried again, but this time for a different reason. Everything kept going through him, and the team was worse for it.
This is not entirely his fault. Great players rarely know when to stop, and Ronaldo’s self-belief is what made him great. The failure is on the part of the coaches and the federation who continued to make him famous long after his body stopped supporting him. Fernando Santos dropped him at the 2022 World Cup and Gonçalo Ramos scored a hat-trick in his place. This should have been the time. Instead, Ronaldo’s show continued with another Euro and another World Cup.
Portugal has one of the deepest talent pools in the world. Rafael Leão, Ramos, Vitinha, João Neves and Nuno Mendes should have been the team’s center of gravity years ago.
Ronaldo was one of the best. Portugal’s coaches and managers should have had the courage to tell him it was time.
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