Portugal should make Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure from the national-team camp permanent. At 41 years old, after 234 international appearances, 146 goals and more privileges than almost any footballer could reasonably expect, walking away when the manager no longer guarantees you a place should be the end.
This is not about denying Ronaldo’s greatness. He is the greatest goalscorer Portugal has produced, captained his country to historic trophies and has given supporters moments that will survive long after every argument surrounding the end of his career has disappeared. None of that gives him permanent ownership of the Portuguese shirt.
The immediate facts are damaging enough. Ronaldo was an unused substitute as Portugal beat Norway 2-1, having warmed up without eventually entering the game. He subsequently did not train normally with the group, Jorge Jesus publicly confirmed Gonçalo Ramos was expected to start against Denmark, and Ronaldo then announced that he had decided to leave the camp after speaking with Portuguese Football Federation president Pedro Proença.
Ronaldo says he will explain his reasons “in due course”, and he is entitled to provide his version. The federation has not publicly accused him of refusing orders, while Jesus himself denied that Ronaldo had refused to train and accepted that leaving a player warming up without using him was frustrating. Those details matter.
But they do not change the fundamental issue. The national-team coach decided another striker should start, made clear that Ronaldo would play only if the match required him, and Portugal’s captain subsequently removed himself from the camp while two Nations League fixtures remained.
A manager has to be allowed to manage. If Jorge Jesus believes Gonçalo Ramos gives Portugal a better chance of winning, he must be able to select Ramos without triggering a national crisis. If he wants Ronaldo on the bench, Ronaldo sits on the bench. If he wants to introduce him after 70 minutes, Ronaldo enters after 70 minutes. If he does not use him at all, that is football.
Ronaldo’s astonishing career makes that emotionally difficult but tactically irrelevant. Selection cannot operate according to lifetime achievement points, Instagram followers or the number of goals a player still needs to reach 1,000. Portugal’s objective is winning matches and preparing a new generation to win tournaments, not arranging the national side around one man’s final statistical targets.
That is what makes the timing particularly ugly. Only days earlier, Ronaldo had spoken about continuing because he believed he could still help Portugal and suggested he would know when he was no longer contributing. The first serious test of that principle arrived when he was left unused against Norway and told somebody else would start the following game.
This was the moment to prove leadership. A 41-year-old captain with virtually every individual record imaginable should have been the player telling younger team-mates that nobody is bigger than the manager’s decision. Instead, Portugal are discussing why their most famous player has left camp in the middle of an international window.
There is a wider standard at stake here. If a 21-year-old reserve player walked out after being left on the bench and then departed before two scheduled matches, nobody would seriously suggest the federation should redesign the team around his unhappiness. Ronaldo’s extraordinary status should earn respect for his career, not exemption from the standards expected of everyone else.
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The Portuguese shirt is not a lifetime achievement award
Ronaldo deserves enormous respect from Portuguese football. He does not deserve unlimited authority over it.
Those two ideas have been confused for too long.
Portugal have spent years navigating the uncomfortable transition between appreciating the greatest player in their history and acknowledging the obvious reality that time eventually defeats everyone. Ronaldo can still score goals. He can still contribute. There will still be matches in which his experience and finishing make him useful.
But “useful” is no longer the same thing as “undroppable”.
That distinction should have been settled years ago. Instead, every selection decision involving Ronaldo becomes an event, every substitution becomes a referendum and every attempt to reduce his role becomes a national drama.
That cannot continue.
Jorge Jesus was refreshingly straightforward. He essentially said that the coach chooses the team: if Ronaldo is needed, he plays; if he is not needed, he does not.
That should be one of the least controversial sentences ever spoken by a football manager.
The remarkable thing is that Ronaldo’s status has become so enormous that stating the basic principle of team selection now feels confrontational.
Portugal have reached the point where managing Cristiano Ronaldo is becoming a bigger story than managing Portugal. That alone should tell the federation this relationship has run its course.
Chasing 1,000 goals is Ronaldo’s ambition, not Portugal’s responsibility
There is another uncomfortable element hanging over the final years of Ronaldo’s career: the pursuit of 1,000 goals.
It is an extraordinary target. Reaching it would represent another almost unbelievable achievement in a career full of them.
But Portugal owe him absolutely nothing in that pursuit.
The national team cannot become a vehicle designed to provide Ronaldo with additional fixtures and scoring opportunities. Jorge Jesus cannot make selection decisions based on helping one player reach a personal milestone. Younger forwards cannot be asked to sit patiently while history is manufactured around somebody else.
Gonçalo Ramos is not there to help Ronaldo reach 1,000.
Neither are João Félix, Rafael Leão, Pedro Neto or the other attacking players attempting to establish their own international careers.
Portugal have just begun a new managerial cycle after the World Cup. Jesus has been given responsibility for deciding what the next version of this team should look like. If his judgement is that Ramos should start and Ronaldo should become an impact substitute, then Ronaldo has two legitimate options: accept the role or retire from international football.
Walking out should not become a third.
His legacy is secure — which makes this even less necessary
The strongest argument for forgiveness is obvious.
Cristiano Ronaldo is not an ordinary international player. He has represented Portugal for more than two decades, scored more international goals than any man in history and helped transform the expectations surrounding the national team.
Great players are sometimes difficult because the obsession that made them great does not suddenly disappear when they reach 40. Ronaldo became Ronaldo because he hated sitting down, hated losing and believed relentlessly in his own ability.
That mentality deserves recognition.
It does not justify everything produced by it.
There comes a moment when competitive selfishness stops helping the team. A captain’s responsibility extends beyond wanting to play. He is supposed to protect the group, support the manager publicly and make younger players understand that the badge outranks the individual.
At 41, Ronaldo should be the easiest player for Jesus to manage emotionally, not the hardest. He has nothing left to prove. He has played 234 times for Portugal. He has captained them to silverware. His statue is metaphorically already built.
The tragedy of Ronaldo’s final international chapter is that he appears to be fighting for status he no longer needs to protect.
Portugal should impose the sanction — then close the door
Reports in Portugal say the federation’s disciplinary regulations allow for a suspension of between one and six months, plus a relatively small financial penalty, when a properly summoned player unjustifiably abandons or fails to attend national-team activities. Whether those provisions ultimately apply to Ronaldo will depend on the federation’s disciplinary process and the circumstances surrounding his departure.
Portugal should follow that process properly.
If the regulations were breached, impose the appropriate formal suspension. Ronaldo’s name should not alter the disciplinary code any more than his name should determine Jorge Jesus’ starting XI.
But the bigger decision does not require a tribunal.
Jesus simply should not call him again.
That is not erasing Ronaldo’s achievements. It is protecting them from an increasingly undignified ending and, more importantly, protecting Portugal from allowing another tournament cycle to become consumed by a debate that should already have been resolved.
Portugal have Ramos. They have Leão, Neto, Félix and an exceptional generation of midfielders behind them. They are defending Nations League champions. They do not need to organise the future around a 41-year-old striker who cannot be guaranteed a starting position.
There is also a message for every other player.
If the captain can leave when unhappy with selection and then return at the next international window because he remains commercially and historically indispensable, what authority does the manager actually possess?
None worth having.
Ronaldo himself said recently that he would step aside when he felt he was no longer helping Portugal. He does not need to make that decision anymore.
Portugal should make it for him.
Thank him. Celebrate him. Build every documentary, statue and tribute his phenomenal career deserves.
Then move on.
Cristiano Ronaldo gave Portugal more than any player in its history. That does not mean Portugal must keep giving Cristiano Ronaldo whatever he wants. The shirt belongs to the country, not to him.
This article is an opinion and analysis piece. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views or official position of BettingTips4You.com or BSpin Limited.
