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\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\tRonaldo helps Portugal reach new level\t\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Before Ronaldo debuted for Portugal by replacing Lu\u00eds Figo in a 2003 friendly against Kazakhstan, Portugal had never won any major trophies.<\/p>\n
Then he and successive generations of talented teammates made Portugal a regular presence at major tournaments.<\/p>\n
Portugal won its first major title at Euro 2016, and the Nations League in 2019 and 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout my entire career with the national team, I always pushed myself beyond my limits,\u201d Ronaldo said. \u201cI wanted to win. I wanted to be better. I wanted to make history.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always demanded the most of myself. I always wanted more. I always believed we could go further. And I gave everything I had for this shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\tMore on Sports<\/button>More videos<\/button>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nPortugal qualified for the World Cup only three times before Ronaldo\u2019s time \u2014 1966, 1986 and 2002. On his watch, Portugal qualified every single time.<\/p>\n
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The same was true for the Euros, which Portugal had played only three times before Ronaldo \u2014 1984, 1996 and 2000. After he arrived it played in the tournament every time. Portugal was runner-up in Ronaldo\u2019s Euro debut in 2004 at home.<\/p>\n
At the World Cup, Portugal went as far as fourth place with Ronaldo, in his tournament debut in 2006. It was among the title candidates nearly every time after that, though, with a best result a quarterfinal appearance in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were perfect afternoons and nights. There were victories I will never forget. There were defeats that still hurt to remember,\u201d Ronaldo said. \u201cI made mistakes. I suffered. There were also moments when I couldn\u2019t give the Portuguese people what they so desperately wanted. But I never gave up, I never stopped feeling proud to represent Portugal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Portugal\u2019s best World Cup finish remains third place in 1966 with the great Eus\u00e9bio in what was the team\u2019s only World Cup participation until 1986.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\tA career of international records\t\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Ronaldo was the first man to score in six World Cups. He reached an all-time 11 goals at this year\u2019s World Cup, surpassing the previous Portugal record of nine from Eus\u00e9bio.<\/p>\n
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He has scored for Portugal in 23 consecutive calendar years, from 2004-26.<\/p>\n
He became the first player to reach 200 men\u2019s international appearances, and his 234 appearances remain the most all-time in men\u2019s international soccer.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo also has the most Euro appearances with 30, and the most Euro goals with 14. His first ever international goal came at the start of Euro 2004, when host Portugal was runner-up to Greece.<\/p>\n
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Ronaldo\u2019s farewell video was of him reading out his retirement announcement, interspersed with clips of him playing for the national team and footage of Portuguese fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent my life working to become the best player in the world,\u201d Ronaldo said at the end. \u201cToday I realize that my greatest victory was earning the honor of representing the best country in the world.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThank you for these 23 years. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for allowing me to live a dream that began when I was just a little boy in Madeira, running after a football. The No. 7 shirt will remain. The pride of having worn it will be mine forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n\t\t© 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source: <\/p>\n
: World<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cristiano Ronaldo won\u2019t play for Portugal anymore, ending on Thursday a career that spanned six World Cups and included a European title and the men\u2019s all-time international scoring record. His… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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