Cristiano Ronaldo Retires from the Portugal National Team

Twenty-three years after making his debut at just 18 years old, Cristiano Ronaldo has decided to hand back Portugal's number 7 jersey. The forward announced his retirement from the national team this Thursday through an emotional video, closing out a chapter in which he finished as the all-time leading scorer in international soccer history, with 146 goals in 234 appearances.

The farewell does not coincide with a final match on the field. In fact, Ronaldo will not even be part of Portugal's upcoming UEFA Nations League fixtures, when the team hosts Denmark on November 14 in Braga and travels to face Wales three days later in Cardiff. The announcement came just one day before head coach Jorge Jesus was set to release the squad list for that pair of matches.

In the letter he read on camera, Cristiano got straight to the heart of the matter: "To the Portuguese people, the day has come to give back the number 7 jersey. Our national team's jersey never felt like it belonged exclusively to me, but for 23 years I had the privilege and the responsibility of wearing it, defending it and carrying it with me to stadiums all over the world. Today the moment has come to hand it over to the future."

"It wasn't an easy decision, because decisions like this aren't made with the head alone, they're also made with the heart."Cristiano Ronaldo

He also spoke about what wearing that jersey meant beyond the results: about the immigrants who, for 90 minutes, felt Portugal closer to home, about the millions of countrymen he never got to meet but who, in some way, became part of his life. "I never gave up, and above all, I never stopped feeling proud to represent Portugal," he said, also acknowledging the difficult nights and the setbacks he had to go through.

A Farewell With Some Tension Attached

The exit was not without friction. In the last FIFA window, Ronaldo warmed up but never made it onto the field in the 2-1 win over Norway in Oslo. After the final whistle he went straight to the locker room, did not greet the Portuguese fans in attendance and left the team's camp, which led to a back and forth of statements with the federation and ultimately resulted in a fine and a suspension for the forward.

With the national team, Cristiano was part of Portugal's only two major titles in its history: Euro 2016 and the Nations League, which the team won in 2019 and again in 2025. The World Cup, however, remains the great unfinished business: although he is the only player to have scored in six different World Cups, he only managed to get past the round of 16 once, at Qatar 2022, a tournament in which Fernando Santos left him out of the starting lineup and his replacement, Gonçalo Ramos, answered with a hat trick against Switzerland. In total, Ronaldo closes out his World Cup history with 11 goals in 27 matches.

The rundown of numbers does not end there. Between Sporting CP, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Juventus, Al Nassr and the Portuguese national team, Cristiano has racked up 985 goals over the course of his career. He needs just 15 more to reach the 1,000 mark, a goal he will now chase solely at club level, wearing the Al Nassr jersey.