EURO 2024: “HE KNOWS IT’S OVER”, HAS THE TIME FOR RONALDO’S INTERNATIONAL RETIREMENT COME?

Eliminated from Euro 2024 by the French team on Friday evening without having scored a goal during the final phase with Portugal, Cristiano Ronaldo could have played his last international competition this summer in Germany. At 39, the Portuguese legend is no longer untouchable and increasingly criticized. After 212 selections, the time for retirement may have come.

Did Cristiano Ronaldo play the last match of his career with Portugal on Friday night in Hamburg? After the Portuguese team’s elimination in the quarter-finals of the Euro against France (0-0, 5-3 on penalties), the question is on everyone’s lips. At 39, the greatest scorer in Portugal’s history (130 goals in 212 caps) has never seemed so close to retirement.

Some stats speak louder than words. In ten international competitions with Portugal, Cristiano Ronaldo had always scored at least one goal in the final phase. For the eleventh, this summer in Germany, he remained silent despite 23 attempts in five matches.

That’s not all. You have to go back to 1997, the last year Portugal didn’t qualify for the final phase of a major tournament (the 1988 World Cup in France), to find a trace of three games in a row without a goal scored by the Portuguese team. If CR7 doesn’t bear the brunt of his team’s inefficiency on his shoulders alone, he no longer weighs. And no longer makes a difference, as illustrated by his lackluster performance against Les Bleus.

Ronaldo-Martinez, whose fault is it?

Against the Upamecano-Saliba hinge, he never existed. More worryingly, apart from an assist for Bruno Fernandes against Turkey, he went through this European Championship like a privileged veteran, Roberto Martinez insisting on leaving him on the pitch until the end.

“Portugal played with ten men, they ruined Portugal’s competition,” regretted Daniel Riolo on Friday evening in the After . For Nicolas Vilas, journalist on RMC Sport and specialist in Portuguese football, “the person responsible is the one who puts them on the pitch. Especially for 120 minutes.”

“He knows it’s over for him with the national team”

If he honors his contract, Roberto Martinez will still be in office at the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. With CR7? The five-time Ballon d’Or winner, who will then be 41, has clearly indicated that this Euro is the last of his career. But he has never spoken out about a possible participation in the next World Cup, nor about his international retirement.

While waiting for his next speech, others speak for him. And gently push him towards the exit like the former Lille player José Fonte: “He knows that it’s over for him with the national team, declared to HLN the Portuguese defender crowned European champion with Ronaldo in 2016. Sometimes, you have to make way for new players and give them the opportunity to express their talent.”

Under contract with Al-Nassr until June 2025, CR7 had performed this season with 35 goals and 11 assists in 31 appearances in the Saudi championship. And next season, when he will be in his forties? At the twilight of his career, does he still want to open a final chapter with his country, in the race towards qualification for the next World Cup? Not sure that a majority of Portuguese people want to do so now.