Cristiano Ronaldo has spent 23 years as the beating heart of the Portuguese national team. On Wednesday, for the first time in all that time, he left the camp before a match was finished with, walking out of the squad’s Copenhagen base rather than wait to see whether Jorge Jesus would pick him against Denmark.
It capped the most turbulent week of his international career. Ronaldo had already been benched for the full 90 minutes against Norway on 27 September, only the third time that has happened to him in a Portugal shirt, and he left the pitch that night without applauding the travelling fans. When Jesus made clear at his pre-match press conference that nothing had changed for the Denmark game, Ronaldo did not stay to find out the team sheet. He boarded a private jet for Madrid instead.
From National Hero to the Bench
The tension had been building since before a ball was kicked in this international window. Ahead of Portugal’s win over Wales in Lisbon on 24 September, a game played at the stadium where Ronaldo made his professional debut, he told reporters bluntly: “The day I feel the coach and the president don’t count on me, I’ll be the first to pack my bags and leave.” He started that match, had a goal ruled out by VAR, and was applauded off when substituted.
Three days later came the Norway game, and the moment that actually broke the dam. Jesus left his captain out for the entire 90 minutes as Portugal won 2-1, with Goncalo Ramos scoring the winner. Jesus later claimed he had intended to bring Ronaldo on but felt the match situation never called for it. Ronaldo’s response was to skip team training over the following days and work alone in the gym, while the Portuguese federation’s president reportedly flew to Copenhagen for an emergency meeting with player and coach that failed to settle anything.
The Walkout, and a Promise of the Truth
Matters came to a head on 30 September. Jesus used his pre-match press conference to insist there was no personal rift, saying he was simply the one who decided who started and who didn’t, and that conditions against Norway had not suited bringing Ronaldo on. While Jesus was still speaking, Ronaldo was already leaving the training base.
He explained himself on Instagram rather than in person. “Following the national team manager’s press conference, and after a conversation with the President of the Portuguese Football Federation, I decided to leave the national team’s training camp,” he wrote, adding that “in due course, I will tell the Portuguese people the truth about the reasons behind my departure.” Rafael Leao was handed the number seven shirt for the trip to Denmark. Portugal had lost their record goalscorer and captain on the eve of a Nations League fixture, with no clear explanation beyond a benching decision that Ronaldo plainly felt was about far more than tactics.
Portugal Win Anyway, and Try Not to Talk About It
What followed was, in its own way, the most pointed response of all. Portugal went to Copenhagen and beat Denmark 4-2, with goals from Joao Cancelo, Goncalo Ramos, Vitinha and Joao Felix. It was an emphatic, attacking performance, and Jesus’s players made a visible effort afterwards to keep the focus on the football rather than the empty space where their captain should have been.
Nuno Mendes pointed out simply that the squad’s attention was on what the coach wanted from them. Goalscorer Goncalo Ramos said the Ronaldo situation “did not influence us”, while Vitinha credited the manager’s work and said the team had taken a step forward in attack. Renato Veiga, asked directly about his relationship with Ronaldo, said he had been told not to discuss it, adding only that he remained close to his former teammate. It was a dressing room making a point without quite saying it out loud: life goes on, with or without him.
Retirement Talk Denied, With Norway Looming Again
The vacuum Ronaldo left behind was quickly filled with speculation that he might be done with international football altogether, not helped by comments in August in which he suggested this could be his last year in the game. The Portuguese federation moved to shut that down. Spokesman Ricardo Quaresma told the Saudi outlet Al Madeena that Ronaldo had given the federation no indication he intended to retire and dismissed reports to the contrary as untrue, stressing that he would be free to rejoin the squad whenever Jesus next selected him. A separate rumour of a lengthy suspension was knocked down in the same breath.
That leaves an awkward, unresolved picture heading into Sunday, when Portugal face Norway again, this time at home, in their final fixture of this international window. Whether Ronaldo is included depends entirely on a relationship between player and coach that neither man has fully explained in public. At 41, closing in on 1,000 career goals for club and country and still Portugal’s all time top scorer by a distance, he remains too significant a figure for Jesus to ignore indefinitely, even if this week suggested the manager is prepared to try. Ronaldo, for his part, has promised an explanation. Portuguese football, and plenty of neutrals besides, will be waiting for it.
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