Ronaldo ends his Portugal career after 23 years in the national team
Seven Lights
Cristiano Ronaldo said Thursday that his international career with Portugal is over, closing 23 years in the national team colors. The 41-year-old will continue to play club football with Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia.
Ronaldo leaves the international stage as the leading scorer in the history of the European Championship, with 14 goals. International success was the one prize long missing from his record, and it came in 2016, when Portugal beat the hosts, France, 1-0 in the Paris final. Injured and substituted early in that match, he watched the closing stages from the touchline and was named in the team of the tournament on three goals and three assists.
His club record runs alongside the comparison with every forward of his era. He won five Ballons d’Or, a tally surpassed only by Lionel Messi. He was the first player to reach 100 Champions League goals, the competition’s record scorer, and the first to win five of its trophies. At Real Madrid he scored 450 goals in 438 matches, extending a run of six consecutive seasons of 50 goals or more. In his first spell at Manchester United, joined from Sporting in 2003 after 31 games and five goals for the Lisbon club, he scored 118 goals in 292 matches, among them the first-ever Puskas award for a solo strike against Porto.
One mark remains open. Ronaldo stands on 985 career goals and has said he will keep playing in pursuit of an unprecedented 1,000.
Ronaldo recalled in his farewell how the Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson took him into the dressing room to meet the players after the 2003 pre-season friendly in which, at 18, he first impressed the club. His five Ballons d’Or ended with the 2017 award, following the Champions League and La Liga double of 2016-17; Messi won three more of the awards, taking the rivalry of their eras eight to five.
Ronaldo’s next appearance will be for Al-Nassr, where the pursuit of the thousandth goal continues.