Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo has walked out of the national team’s training camp in Denmark, hours after coach Jorge Jesus said he would be dropped for Thursday’s Nations League match.
Ronaldo was due to train with his team-mates at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen on Wednesday, but left abruptly after Jesus’s press conference, Dawn reported, citing AFP.
“I will tell the truth”
“Following the national team coach’s press conference, and after having a conversation with the Portuguese Football Federation president, I decided to leave the national team’s training camp,” Ronaldo wrote on Instagram.
“In due course, I will tell the truth to all the Portuguese people about my reasons for leaving the national team, to which I have always been dedicated.
“Now is time to wish good luck to Portugal and to all my team-mates, without exception.”
Portuguese media shared video of Ronaldo leaving the stadium with two members of the backroom staff, and reported that his private jet was heading to Copenhagen.
Benched against Norway
The row began on Sunday, when Ronaldo spent the whole of Portugal’s 2-1 Nations League win over Norway in Oslo on the bench. After the match, he went straight to the dressing room without joining his team-mates in thanking the travelling fans.
Jesus said he had told Ronaldo before the game that he would not start but might come on late. “Afterwards, as coach, I decided not to bring him on. It’s nothing to make a fuss about,” he said.
The 72-year-old insisted there was no rift, though he admitted his captain had been disappointed. “Any player, and I was a player myself… when you spend 20 or 30 minutes warming up and then don’t get on… no one is happy about that,” he said.
Jesus said Goncalo Ramos, the AC Milan striker who scored the winner in Oslo, would start against Denmark. “If I need him, he’ll come on. If I don’t need him, he won’t,” he said of Ronaldo.
Federation: preparations continue
The Portuguese Football Federation confirmed Ronaldo had left. “Preparation for the two matches against Denmark and Norway… continues as planned with the 24 remaining squad members,” it said. “The entire delegation remains totally focused on the national team’s next fixtures.”
Sister lashes out
The news set off a wave of memes and an angry response from Ronaldo’s sister, Elma Aveiro. “They don’t deserve to have the best of anything,” she wrote on Instagram about the Portuguese people. “We are envious, scornful, and ignorant, and we deserve to return to the mediocrity that defined us in the pre-CR7 era of football.”
A legend near the end
Ronaldo, 41, is Portugal’s record goalscorer and most-capped player, with 146 goals in 234 appearances. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner, who has played for Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, said this summer that this season would “probably (be) my last year in football”.
Why it matters
Ronaldo has been the face of Portuguese football for two decades, and his walkout could mark a bitter end to one of the greatest international careers in the game’s history. His promise to “tell the truth” means this story is far from over. Read our report on Manchester City’s guilty verdict, the other big football story of the week.
This article draws on reporting by AFP, via Dawn.
Comments
Comments are reviewed by our editors before they appear. Please keep them civil and on topic. See our terms.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your view.