There was no stadium. No farewell match, no guard of honour, no final lap with the flag over his shoulders. Cristiano Ronaldo ended 23 years with Portugal the way modern footballers end things now, with a video on his phone, reading a letter to the people who watched him grow up in red. “The day has come for me to hand back the number 7 shirt of our national team,” he said, and with that one line, the Ronaldo retirement became official on Thursday, 5 November.
It was a strange way for the biggest international career in football history to end. Not with a trophy, not with a last goal, but with a quiet video posted online while Portugal were about to name a squad without him. The Portuguese Football Federation said in a statement that it “refuses to let this farewell take place without due tribute”, CNN reported. Whether that tribute becomes a real match on a real pitch is still unclear.
“It was not an easy decision, because there are decisions that are not made only with the head. They are also made with the heart,” Ronaldo said in the video, according to Al Jazeera. “If I ever made you happy, if one of my goals ever made you hug someone, forget a worry or feel proud of our country, then it was all worth it.”
The row behind the Ronaldo retirement
Here is the part the farewell video skipped. Ronaldo did not mention his coach, Jorge Jesus, once. He did not have to. Everyone watching knew the story.
Ronaldo’s last game for Portugal was on 24 September, a 1-0 Nations League win over Wales in Lisbon. Six weeks ago. He started that night, played, won, and nobody in the stadium knew they were watching the end. Then Jesus left him out of the side, and on 30 September Ronaldo walked out of the national team camp in Copenhagen, a day before a Nations League match against Denmark. He said later that Jesus had broken his word to him twice. The federation fined him 255 euros and handed him a 30-day suspension, USA Today reported, a punishment light enough to tell you they wanted him back. Jesus said publicly he hoped to bring him back. Ronaldo, it turned out, had already decided.
That is what makes this retirement hard to file away as a simple goodbye. He was not pushed out by age alone, though he turns 42 in February. He was not injured. He walked away from a fight he decided he could not win, and announced it on his own terms, hours before Portugal named their squad for the November internationals against Denmark and Wales.
What he leaves behind
The numbers will be quoted for decades, so let us get them right. Ronaldo made 234 appearances for Portugal and scored 146 goals, both men’s international records, according to CNN. No man has played more games for his country. No man has scored more goals for his.
He captained Portugal to their first major trophy at Euro 2016, then added Nations League titles in 2019 and 2025. He became the first player to play and score at six consecutive World Cups, Al Jazeera noted, with his three goals at the 2026 edition. The one prize that never came was the World Cup itself. Portugal lost to Spain in the round of 16 this year, and Ronaldo said afterwards it was his last World Cup. He was right about that, and then some.
Indian fans will have felt this one in a particular way. Hours after the announcement, in Dhaka, Mohun Bagan forward Suhail Ahmad Bhat scored twice as India beat Pakistan 3-2 in their SAFF Championship opener, and celebrated his first goal with Ronaldo’s trademark SIU jump. A young forward from Srinagar, playing for the defending champions, borrowed the celebration of a 41-year-old who had just hung up his international boots. Football passes things on like that, usually without asking permission. India, meanwhile, keep rolling through a busy week of sport. The hockey team are chasing a sixth Asian Champions Trophy title after thrashing South Korea 8-1 in the semi-final, and Kohli’s 74 in Auckland has already given the cricket team a 1-0 ODI lead in New Zealand. The India vs Japan hockey final is in Mohali tonight.
Ronaldo is not finished with football entirely. He still plays for Saudi club Al-Nassr, where he has 985 career goals and is closing in on 1,000, CNN reported. He told Vogue in August that this is probably his last year of football. His great rival Lionel Messi retired from international duty with Argentina last month after a farewell match of his own, which makes this feel less like one man’s decision and more like an era quietly closing its doors.
So what happens now? The federation’s wording leaves the door open for a tribute match, and Lisbon would sell out in minutes for one last sight of the number 7 shirt. My guess is it happens, probably next year, because football rarely lets a farewell this big go without a stage. But if it does not, the record books will say his last Portugal game was a routine 1-0 win over Wales on a September night, with no ceremony at all.