Cristiano Ronaldo said Portugal’s head coach “broke his word” to him, giving a detailed first-person account of why he left the national team’s camp, while accepting that he should not have gone and that he deserves to be punished.
In a long statement, the Portugal captain apologised to fans and teammates. He said “the responsibility is exclusively mine” for leaving, but insisted the breakdown in trust left him feeling his presence “would only harm the working group”.
A plan agreed in August
Ronaldo said Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) president insisted he reconsider his plan to leave the team after the 2026 World Cup, and asked for his view on the future head coach. He said he backed the eventual appointment, adding that “it was the right option, as the results are confirming.”
Ronaldo said he met the new coach at the Cidade do Futebol, where his club was holding its pre-season camp, with Al Nassr sporting director Simão Coutinho present. The coach, he said, told him he was “fundamental” to his project and laid out a plan: Ronaldo would play the first and last matches, with three to four substitutions per game for “physical management”.
The coach also floated the idea of Ronaldo skipping the trip to Norway and Denmark and rejoining before the match at the Dragão. Ronaldo said he rejected it immediately. “That privilege of staying in Portugal would not be a good example,” he said, adding that the coach “ended up agreeing.”
The Norway match
Ronaldo said he came on as a substitute in the match at Alvalade and made “no problem” of it, handing the armband to Bruno Fernandes himself.
On the day of the match in Norway, he said, an assistant told him at lunch that the coach wanted to see him. The coach asked whether he was fit to play 30 minutes. Ronaldo said he was not expecting to play, as he was only due to feature at the Dragão on the 4th, but agreed.
“I warmed up from half-time, watched the minutes go by, and was not called,” he said. “The coach had broken his word to me.”
After the final whistle, Ronaldo did not greet the supporters. “A failing that is solely my responsibility and that should not have happened,” he said, apologising to Portuguese fans and to foreign fans who travelled to see him.
The disputed press conference
Ronaldo said that 48 hours later he met the coach and Coutinho in a “very frank” conversation “without any kind of filter”. They agreed the matter would be closed if the coach repeated in the press room what he had said in private: that Ronaldo never asked to play, that the coach alone proposed the plan, and that it was a mistake to have him warm up and not bring him on.
A short document summarising the points was drawn up after a videoconference between the coach, Coutinho and Tiago Craveiro, and Ronaldo said he validated it. According to Ronaldo, the notes said the coach had made a mistake “putting someone of the stature of Pelé or Maradona on to warm up and then not putting him in the game”, and that “I want Cristiano in the National Team. In fact I do not want him a little, I want him a lot.”
The notes also defended Ronaldo over the snub to supporters: “Someone who has played more than 230 matches for the national team does not receive lessons from me on love for Portugal.”
But Ronaldo said the press conference itself bore no resemblance to the agreement. He said he heard “expressions and an aggressiveness that I do not believe I deserved”, an attitude of “I want, I can and I command” that the coach never showed in private. He said the notes contained nothing suggesting the coach should apologise to him, and that it was “the second time he had broken his word to me.”
“The purest of truths”
Ronaldo said he left the camp “without waiting for any further breach of word”. He said he told the FPF president and the coach on the morning of the press conference that if they did not want him, they should say so, and that both replied “in unison” that his place was in the team.
“For me the truth is still the most important thing in the relationship between people,” he said. “However much it hurts, let them tell me the truth.”
He denied ever interfering in technical decisions during almost 25 years of career. “I accept, for better or worse, what they propose that I do,” he said.
Ronaldo said the FPF must decide his punishment and that it should carry no mitigating factors. “I am not just any player; I am team captain, and that constitutes an aggravating factor,” he said. “Regardless of each person’s status, the rules are the same for everyone.”
On talk of a farewell match, he said: “I learned in life, often hungry and with nothing to eat, that no one gives anything to anyone.” He promised “one or more farewell matches” in due course, but said that when he thinks of the national team, “what I really think of is competing”. He recalled staying with the squad until the end of a match the day after being told of his father’s death.
“If I am physically well, playing for my club, with goals I hope, after serving the suspension that may be applied to me, I will be available, as I have always been until today, to compete and win for our national team,” Ronaldo said. “This is, believe me, the purest of truths.”
