Cristiano Ronaldo announces he will retire from Portugal
Cristiano Ronaldo announces he will retire from Portugal
Cristiano Ronaldo has announced his intention to retire from the Portugal national team. He will hand back his famous No 7 shirt after the November international break.
The 41-year-old made the announcement in a social media post containing a video message. On his official X account, he wrote "Portugal estará sempre em mim", which roughly translates as "Portugal will always be in me." The Guardian reported the news on 5 November 2026.
An international break is a stretch of days when national teams play friendly matches and qualifiers, and clubs release their players to join up with their country.
Ronaldo's numbers for Portugal are huge. He has made 234 appearances, and he has scored 146 goals. He holds the all-time records for both international appearances and international goals across men's football. He said he had worn the No 7 shirt for 23 years.
The news was not entirely out of the blue. In August, Ronaldo said the coming year would probably be his last. Back in November 2025, he had said he planned to retire within one or two years. In September, Sky Sports reported that he had considered stepping away from international football after the 2026 World Cup, but that he was still targeting 1,000 career goals.
There was also a difficult moment at the end of September. Reuters reported that he had left Portugal's training camp in Copenhagen abruptly, and the coach denied there was any rift between the player and the squad.
For Portugal fans, the next few matches now carry a different weight. The No 7 shirt will change hands after the break, and that handover will be the moment many people choose to remember. Ronaldo has spent a long career being the player other teams planned around, and the countdown to the end of his time in a Portugal shirt has now started.
For neutral fans, the story is simple. One of the best-known faces in world football has set a date for the end of his international career, and the shirt number that came with it will soon belong to someone else.
