After Ronaldo’s caustic exit from Manchester United, Cristiano Ronaldo now has to fight for the substitute role with his national team.
“Ronaldo threatened to leave”
While Portugal may have beat Switzerland 6-1 during their round of 16 games at the 2022 World Cup, their captain Cristiano Ronaldo is reportedly unhappy about being left out of the squad. After his caustic exit from Manchester United, Cristiano Ronaldo now has to fight for the substitute role with his national team. According to the Portuguese edition of Record, this has not gone down well with the five-time Ballon d’Or winner Ronaldo, who threatened to leave the training camp. The article was headlined, “Ronaldo threatened to leave,” and highlights how Portugal’s record goal scorer was furious by the decision to keep him out of the XI even though the team looked much better for his absence.
“In the heat of the conversation with the head coach, when he learned that he would not be in the starting lineup, he thought of the worst,” reads the sentence from the Record article.
However, the publication also clarifies that he calmed down after the initial shock and understood the outcome of passing this threat at such a crucial stage. The Portuguese Football Federation has ultimately denied the story, saying that Ronaldo never threatened to leave a training session or a tournament. After a day off on Wednesday, the Portuguese team decided to split their team in two, with an initial training session in the gym and a replacement doing various training sessions at the training ground. However, Ronaldo was absent from the sessions, despite the forward assuring everyone that he had no problems with injury. Another who was extremely upset by the decision not to start Ronaldo was his partner Georgina Rodriguez. “What a shame not to be able to enjoy the best player in the world for 90 minutes,” she wrote in a social media post.