“This is the truth on what has happened with Jorge Jesus”.
As I promised, I decided to recount, in the first person and directly, the circumstances surrounding the last training camp of the National Team.
After the 2026 World Cup I prepared a letter to the Portuguese people, which I still keep, with the words I want to address to them when I leave our team for good.
At the end of the competition, already on the flight back from the United States, the President of the Federation asked and insisted that I reconsider the decision to leave, because the FPF wanted me to continue.
Right afterwards he asked me for my opinion on the name of the current head coach, which he was considering alongside other names he did not reveal to me.
I told the President of the Federation that, in my opinion, it would be the right choice.
That is why, on the day the current head coach was presented, I was genuinely happy with the choice. It was the right option, as the results are confirming.
A few days later I received a first contact from the new national team coach saying he would like to meet me in person. I said yes and we scheduled it for the end of my holidays.
We met at the Cidade do Futebol, where my club was holding its pre-season training camp.
That day the coach told me he was counting on me and that my presence was fundamental to his project. He presented me, right there, with a plan for my participation. He told me I would play the first match and the last one, and that for reasons of physical management he would always make three to four changes per match.
At that point he raised the possibility of me not travelling with the national team to Norway and Denmark. He proposed that I play the first match and stay in Portugal, then rejoin before the match at the Dragão.
I refused this proposal immediately. It seemed obvious to me that I could not accept it. It was not because I would not play the matches abroad that I would stop captaining our team. That privilege of staying in Portugal would not be a good example.
The coach ended up agreeing with my analysis.
This conversation was attended by Simão Coutinho, sporting director of Al Nassr, the person to whom the current coach reported throughout last season and one of those responsible for his signing by the club in 2025.
On the eve of the start of the camp the coach came to my house in Lisbon, at his request, for another conversation with me. The conversation was calm and all the principles agreed in August were maintained.
I played the match at Alvalade and, although substituted, I made no problem of it. I put the armband on Bruno Fernandes myself, far from imagining that I might be taking my last steps as a player and captain of the National Team. What mattered to me that day was our victory. Winning is always good; in Portugal and for my country, even better.
At lunchtime on the day of the match in Norway, an assistant to the coach came to the table where the group was having lunch and informed me that the coach wanted to speak to me.
To my absolute surprise, the coach asked me if I was fit to play 30 minutes. I was fully focused on my physical recovery, integrated with my teammates as always, and thinking that I would not play that day. Without any problem.
This request was something outside my physical recovery and training plan — because I was only going to play on the 4th at the Dragão — but of course I said yes. He replied that I should then be ready because I would play 30 minutes.
The rest everyone knows. I warmed up from half-time, watched the minutes go by, and was not called.
The coach had broken his word to me.
Cristiano Ronaldo: “I decided to leave the camp without waiting for any further breach of word. For me the truth is still the most important thing in the relationship between people. However much it hurts, let them tell me the truth.
In fact, in a conversation I had with the President of the FPF and with the coach on the morning of the day of that press conference — they can certainly confirm this — I reaffirmed that if they did not want me there they should tell me. It was enough for them to be frank with me. I would accept that and I promised that we would prepare something beautiful, as I dream will happen, and no one would be left angry.
I remember it as if it were today. They replied in unison that no. That my place was in the National Team.
Never, at any moment, have I interfered in any technical or tactical decision of any coach or national team manager in almost 25 years of career.
I accept, for better or worse, what they propose that I do. I respect the decision, and when they break their word to me, I feel that my place is not there.
I also owe an apology to my national team teammates for having left the camp.
Despite the absolute breach of trust in the coach’s word, as those who witnessed these conversations can attest, I should not have done it. The responsibility is exclusively mine.
I apologise to the Portuguese people once again, but the breaking of one’s word has, for me, a defining impact. I felt that, from that point on, my remaining would only harm the working group, and I did what I have always said I would do if I did not feel useful: I packed my bags and left.
The consequence of this act of mine must be assessed and punished by the Portuguese Football Federation. I understand that the punishment should have no mitigating factors. I am not just any player; I am team captain, and that constitutes an aggravating factor.
I have already apologised, but I know that attitudes must have consequences. Anyone who is in football as I am knows that, regardless of each person’s status, the rules are the same for everyone.
On this subject, I have heard a great deal of talk about farewell matches, that I must have a dignified farewell and that the Federation wants to give me that opportunity.
I learned in life, often hungry and with nothing to eat, that no one gives anything to anyone.
I can promise all my fans, naturally and especially all Portuguese people, that we will have one or more farewell matches; there will be time for that.
But when I think of the national team, what I really think of is competing. That is what I thought on the day I was given the news of my father’s death.
I was at a camp with our national team and I decided to stay there until the end of the match the following day. I did for the country what I would never do for any club.
Therefore, 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.
This is, believe me, the purest of truths.
Cristiano Ronaldo”.
