Cristiano Ronaldo has left Portugal’s training camp in Copenhagen and will board his private plane to Madrid in a matter of hours, cutting short his UEFA Nations League break with two matches still to be played. The exit of the captain and great icon of the Portuguese national team, reported from Denmark, could prove to be his final farewell to the national side.
The departure came only minutes after Jorge Jesus, Portugal’s current national team coach and Ronaldo’s former manager at Al Nassr, with whom the forward won the Saudi league, had dismissed any suggestion of a problem between the two men. Jesus had even stated that the captain would train in Copenhagen that day: “Yesterday he did not refuse to train. Francisco Conceição did not train due to injury, nor did Félix, because we were trying to ease the fatigue, and Cristiano Ronaldo did gym work. He will train today. It is the fourth day, so he will train.”
It did not unfold that way. Ronaldo left Parken in a black van belonging to the Portuguese Football Federation.
Jesus had confirmed that he met Ronaldo the previous night, on Tuesday, but made clear that everything had been resolved before dinner. He also left no doubt about his authority at the helm of the national team: “I can promise whatever I want. I am the coach. I am the coach, I told the player that he was not going to play. I will put you on the bench. If I need you for 30 minutes, you will play; if not, you will not. No player will make me change my mind. Not him, nor anyone in football. Nor any president. Never, absolutely nobody.”
The crisis had begun a few days earlier in Oslo, during the Nations League match Norway 1-2 Portugal. Ronaldo started on the bench as Jesus handed the starting places to João Félix and Gonçalo Ramos, a decision that worked out well for the coach because both players scored and the team won. The Portuguese captain remained on the bench for the entire match, apart from moments in the second half when he was warming up, and ended it without a single minute. After the victory Ronaldo headed immediately to the dressing room and did not join the other substitutes in training the following day, something Jesus justified a few hours ago as “usual” for the man from Madeira.
What raised all the alarms in Portugal was the change of plans and the trip made by Pedro Proença, president of the Portuguese Football Federation, to meet the Portuguese star and Jorge Jesus in Copenhagen. That meeting took place on Wednesday morning.
No one has yet stated that Ronaldo’s Portugal career is over, but the timing of his exit, hours after his coach publicly insisted that everything was fine, leaves that question open. What is already certain is that a Nations League window that began with Ronaldo watching from the bench in Oslo has ended with the captain leaving the camp before the two remaining fixtures.