October 2: “No one is bigger than the team” is one of football’s oldest lines, and Cristiano Ronaldo has spent most of his career proving it wrong. But he is now 41 and Portugal must think about life after him. He doesn’t seem to agree.
Ronaldo has left the national team’s camp ahead of Thursday’s Nations League game in Denmark, leaving shortly after manager Jorge Jesus said he would not start in Copenhagen.
He was an unused substitute in Sunday’s 2-1 win against Norway and has not trained with the national team since.
“After the press conference of the national team and after a conversation with the president of the Portuguese Football Federation, I have made the decision to leave the training camp of the national team,” he wrote on Instagram. “In due time, I will tell all the Portuguese the truth about the reasons that led me to leave the national team, to which I always dedicated myself.”
The federation said the other 24 players will continue to prepare as normal.
Jesus, who had Ronaldo for about a year in Saudi Arabia and took over from Roberto Martinez after the World Cup, says Gonçalo Ramos is a starter. “The rules are the same for everyone,” he said.
He recognized a part of it. He told Ronaldo he would probably play against Norway, then changed his mind and said letting him warm up for so long and not bringing him on was a mistake. Any player would be upset, he said.
“I can promise whatever I want, I’m the coach,” Jesus said. “No player will ever make a decision for me.”
He said there was no “Ronaldo case” and that a three-way meeting with federation president Pedro Proença was only for noise in Portugal. “The president didn’t have to solve anything because there was nothing to solve.”
Ronaldo has 146 international goals, more than any man in history, and is chasing 1,000 for his career.
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