Signed: Cristiano Ronaldo6 de Outubro de 2026
“Tal como prometi…”
He opens as he said he would: in the first person, directly, about what happened in the last national-team camp. Then the detail nobody expected. After the 2026 World Cup he wrote a farewell letter to the Portuguese people. He still keeps it, with the words he wants to say when he leaves for good.
On the flight home from the United States the president of the Federation asked him, and insisted, that he reconsider. The Federation wanted him to continue. Soon after, the president asked his opinion on a name being considered for the bench, alongside others he was never told.
The letter never names the president or the coach; it says “o Presidente da Federação” and “o Selecionador”. Portuguese press identifies them as Pedro Proença and Jorge Jesus.
He said yes to the coach.
He told the president the candidate would be the right choice, and says he was genuinely happy the day the new coach was presented.
He adds that the results since have proved it the right call.
A plan, and a privilege refused.
Days after the appointment the coach asked to meet in person. They met at the end of his holidays at the Cidade do Futebol, where Al Nassr was in pre-season. The coach said he counted on him and that his presence was fundamental to the project. The plan: play the first match of the window and the last, with three or four substitutions per game to manage his body.
Then came a second idea: play the first match, stay in Portugal while the team travelled to Norway and Denmark, rejoin before the final game in Porto. He says he refused immediately. A captain does not stop captaining because he is not playing.
Staying home while the squad travelled, he writes, would have been a privilege and a bad example.
The coach agreed. One witness: Simão Coutinho, Al Nassr's sporting director, to whom the coach had reported all of the previous season. On the eve of the camp the coach visited him at home in Lisbon; the August principles held.
The armband, handed over.
He played the first match in Lisbon, was substituted without complaint, and put the armband on Bruno Fernandes himself.
He had no idea, he says, that these might be his last steps as a player and captain of the national team.
What mattered, he writes, was the win.
Thirty minutes that never came.
At lunch on match day an assistant said the coach wanted a word. To his absolute surprise, the coach asked if he was fit to play thirty minutes. He had been managing his recovery for the final match in Porto on the 4th. He said yes anyway. The coach told him to be ready.
Aqueci desde o intervalo, vi os minutos a passar e não fui chamado.
I warmed up from half-time, watched the minutes pass, and was not called on.
Letter, 6 Oct 2026 — via CNN Portugal
For him, that was the first time the coach broke his word.
An apology he does not share.
After the match he wanted only for it to end with the win, and to be alone. He did not go to greet the supporters. He calls it a failure that is his alone, and apologises three times: to the Portuguese who travelled, to the fans in general, and to anyone from elsewhere who came hoping to see him.
He apologises to the Portuguese again, while making clear that a broken promise, for him, changes everything.
The words the coach was meant to say.
Forty-eight hours later the three of them sat down: the captain, the coach, Simão Coutinho. A deep, very frank conversation. The way out, they agreed, was for the coach to repeat in the press room what he had just said in private: that the captain never asked for a single minute, that the plan was the coach's and no one else's, that warming him up and not using him was a mistake he would not repeat. The coach asked for a hug and promised to say it. A video call with the Federation's Tiago Craveiro followed; a short document was written, validated by the captain and handed to the coach, as the coach had asked.
The letter then reproduces the eight validated notes, written in the coach's voice. Among them:
Errei ao colocar alguém da dimensão de Pelé ou Maradona a aquecer para depois não o colocar em jogo.
I was wrong to have someone of the stature of Pelé or Maradona warm up and then not put him on.
Validated notes quoted in the letter — via CNN Portugal
Another note had the coach say he wanted him in the national team, and not a little.
The remaining notes, in summary: the coach alone proposed the season plan; it was accepted; the captain never questioned a decision and was exemplary, loyal and professional; Norway was not in the plan; someone with more than 230 caps needs no lessons in love for Portugal; not greeting the fans was a moment of frustration.
The second time.
The press conference, he writes, was what everyone saw. Its posture had nothing to do with their meeting.
He describes hearing an aggressiveness he felt he did not deserve, and an attitude of command that the coach had never shown him in private the day before.
He points out that none of the agreed notes even asked the coach to apologise.
Era a segunda vez, que me estava a faltar à palavra dada.
It was the second time he was breaking the word he had given me.
Letter, 6 Oct 2026 — via CNN Portugal
He asked them to be honest. They said no.
He left the camp without waiting for a third broken word. That same morning, he says, he had told the president and the coach that if they did not want him there they only had to say so; he would accept it and they would prepare something beautiful.
Responderam em uníssono que não. Que o meu lugar era na Seleção Nacional.
They answered in unison: no. That my place was in the national team.
Letter, 6 Oct 2026 — via CNN Portugal
Truth, he writes, is still the most important thing between people, however much it hurts.
In almost twenty-five years, he writes, he has never interfered in a coach's technical or tactical decision. He owes his teammates an apology for leaving; the responsibility is his alone. He asks the Federation to punish him without mitigation.
Being captain, he says, is an aggravating factor, and the rules are the same for everyone.
…fiz o que sempre disse que faria se não me sentisse útil: peguei nas malas e saí.
…I did what I always said I would do if I didn't feel useful: I packed my bags and left.
Letter, 6 Oct 2026 — via CNN Portugal
Not a farewell. A return.
He has heard a lot about farewell matches and a dignified send-off the Federation wants to give him. He is not interested in gifts.
Aprendi na vida, com fome e sem nada para comer muitas vezes, que ninguém dá nada a ninguém.
I learned in life, often hungry and with nothing to eat, that nobody gives anybody anything.
Letter, 6 Oct 2026 — via CNN Portugal
When he thinks of the national team, he writes, he thinks of competing.
That, he writes, is what he thought about the day he learned his father had died: he was in a national-team camp and stayed until the next day's match was over.
He did for his country, he says, what he would never have done for any club.
If he is fit, playing and scoring for his club, and once any suspension has been served, he will be available, as he always has been, to compete and win for Portugal.
Esta é, acreditem, a mais pura das verdades.
This is, believe me, the purest of truths.
Letter, 6 Oct 2026 — closing line, via CNN Portugal
