Cristiano Ronaldo explains his side of spat with Portugal coach while keeping door open to return

Shopping Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days are back, but they won't last long. Shop our picks! Cristiano Ronaldo is not done with Portugal’s national team and said in a lengthy statement that he will remain available to the squad, while providing new details surrounding his unexpected departure from the club and the seeming rift between himself and coach Jorge Jesus. 

All of it came to a head last week when the 41-year-old footballer departed the national team camp in the middle of a slate of UEFA Nations League matches. The surprising move came after he went unused as a substitute in the 2-1 win over Norway on sept. 27, which Ronaldo said in the statement was Jesus breaking his word to him. 

Despite the drama, Ronaldo is still hoping to play for the national team and get one final farewell before the curtain closes on his soccer career. 

“If I am physically fit, playing for my club, scoring goals, I hope, that after serving whatever suspension is imposed on me, I will be available, as I have always been until today, to compete and win for our national team,” Ronaldo said in a nearly 2,000-word statement. 

While Jesus said there “was no issue” between himself and Ronaldo, the soccer icon alleged in the statement that the Portugal coach had broken his word twice, with the first instance being Jesus not playing him against Norway and the second coming from the “aggressiveness” during his press conference on the matter. 

“To my absolute surprise, the coach asked me whether I was ready to play 30 minutes [against Norway],” Ronaldo said.

“I was completely focused on my physical recovery, integrated with my teammates as always, and thinking that I would not play that day. I had no problem with that.

“This request was outside my physical recovery and training plan — because I was only supposed to play on Oct. 4 at the Dragão — but obviously I said yes. He told me to be prepared because I would play 30 minutes.

“Everyone knows what happened next. I warmed up from halftime, watched the minutes go by, and was not called upon.

“The coach had broken his word to me.”

Following that decision, according to Ronaldo, a meeting took place between himself, Jesus and sporting director of the Saudi Pro League club, Simao Coutinho, where they agreed that Jesus would clarify the situation during a news conference on Sept. 29.

An eight-point document had been created to summarise the points surrounding the situation, which boiled down to saying that Ronaldo had not demanded minutes and that Jesus saw it as a mistake to have let the footballer warm up without ever bringing him into the match. 

View this post on Instagram However, when the news conference occurred, Ronaldo said that “his attitude had nothing to do with our meeting.” 

“I heard expressions and an aggressiveness that I believe I did not deserve, an attitude of ‘I want, I can, and I command’ that he had not shown me, not even remotely, in private the day before,” he said. “It was the second time he had broken his word to me.”

Ronaldo did express remorse about the way his exit impacted his teammates and the fans. 

He said the decision to leave was “exclusively mine” and said that it was one he “should not have done.” 

Ronaldo, who said he was talked out of stepping away from international soccer following the World Cup this summer, acknowledged that he should face some sort of punishment from the Portugal Football Federation. 

“I have heard a lot about farewell matches, that I deserve a dignified farewell and that the [FPF] wants to give me that opportunity,” he said. “I can promise all my fans, and especially all Portuguese people, that we will have one or more farewell matches. There will be time for that.

“But when I think about the national team, what I really think about is competing. That is what I thought about on the day I was told of my father’s death. I was at a national team training camp and decided to stay until the following day’s match was over. I did for my country what I would never have done for any club.”

The next international window isn’t until November, when Portugal will face Denmark and Wales, and would be the next time that Ronaldo could suit up again for his country. 

When asked by Portugal outlet CMTV on Tuesday about Ronaldo’s statement, he said that he was “going to read the note now” and “I have nothing else to say.”