Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal's national soccer team: This more than 20-year relationship ended, at least for the time being, at Madrid airport after 234 international matches and 146 goals. At 2:40 a.m. local time, the superstar landed there in a private plane after his hasty departure from the team's headquarters. Even in the middle of the night, a dozen “CR7” fans showed up to celebrate and film their idol as he left the airport.
Nobody believes that Ronaldo will play for Portugal again. He can hardly hope for understanding in his homeland anymore for his reaction, which is perceived as insulted and self-centered. “Gratitude flew away on Cristiano Ronaldo’s plane,” commented the sports newspaper “O Jogo” that morning. She described the five-time world footballer of the year as having “an ego that is disproportionate to reality.”
Portugal's football association FPF can now even ban its most famous player from the national team. According to the statutes, a professional who misses a training session, game or other team activity without giving a reason can be fined and banned from one to six months. His famous number 7 has already been given to Rafael Leão - but this is not an affront, it has to happen that way. In the Nations League, the squad must be numbered from number 1 to 23.
Whether the now 41-year-old star striker is still entitled to a regular place in the national team regardless of performance - this discussion is not new. Before today's Nations League game in Denmark (8.45 p.m./DAZN), it escalated in an unprecedented way. And that under the new national coach Jorge Jesus, who was actually considered Ronaldo's friend due to their shared successes at the Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr.
But Jesus put his captain on the bench for 90 minutes in the 2-1 win in Norway on Sunday. Ronaldo was upset about this and did not train with the other reserves on Monday or with the entire team on Wednesday after the trip to the Denmark game.
On the sidelines of this training there was another short conversation between Ronaldo and Jesus. But when the coach announced at his official press conference in Copenhagen on Wednesday evening that he would not be allowed to start against Denmark, Ronaldo left the team hotel and boarded his private jet to Spain. After his nine-year stint at Real Madrid, he still owns several properties there.
“In due course I will tell all Portuguese people the truth about the reasons that motivated me to leave the national team, for which I have always sacrificed myself,” Ronaldo wrote on his Instagram channel. “Now it’s time to wish Portugal and all my teammates the best of luck, without exception.”
Like so many things in his career, Ronaldo's escape from the national team can be mirrored with his eternal rival Lionel Messi. For two decades, both competed to see who could win more Ballon d'Ors and international titles. But when Messi plays his farewell game with the Argentine team next Tuesday, everyone will be at his feet.
The University of Buenos Aires even wants to award him an honorary doctorate. In recent years, the Argentinians have been a successful unit in which even top international players from Manchester City and Inter Milan followed their captain Messi, ran for him and worshiped him.
Things were different for the Portuguese before Ronaldo left the team headquarters through the back door. Younger players like João Neves or Vitinha from Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League with their club - and in the national team they were clearly no longer interested in subordinating everything to the whims and goals of a 41-year-old.
The fact that the 72-year-old coach Jesus contradicted himself at almost every appearance in the past few days made things even more difficult. Sometimes he gave Ronaldo “a special status”, sometimes he called him a “player like any other”. No national coach before him has moderated the ongoing topic of Ronaldo more clumsily and vaguely.
As long as the superstar is in hiding in Madrid, some friends and his family are taking over the public defense for the time being. “CR7 would have deserved more respect,” wrote Ronaldo’s sister Elma Aveiro on Instagram and polemicized in the direction of the national team: “We are jealous, dismissive, ignorant and deserve to fall back into the mediocrity that we always had in football before CR7.”
This statement gives the impression that players like Luis Figo or Rui Costa never existed in Portugal. As if successes like the 2000 European Championship semi-finals had never happened. “O Jogo” commented on the ingloriousness of Ronaldo’s departure the day after: “Neither he nor the Portuguese deserved it.”
