Ronaldo retires from international football

Cris­tiano Ronal­do an­nounced on Thurs­day he won’t play for Por­tu­gal any­more, end­ing a ca­reer that spanned six World Cups and in­clud­ed a Eu­ro­pean ti­tle and the men’s all-time in­ter­na­tion­al scor­ing record.

The an­nounce­ment marked the end of a laud­ed ca­reer that be­gan more than two decades ago be­fore Eu­ro 2004 and fin­ished with him walk­ing out on the na­tion­al team af­ter falling out with coach Jorge Je­sus.

“To the Por­tuguese peo­ple, the day has come for me to hand back the No. 7 shirt of our na­tion­al team,” the 41-year-old Ronal­do said in a long video mes­sage on so­cial me­dia. “I nev­er felt it be­longed to me alone but for 23 years I had the priv­i­lege and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of wear­ing it, de­fend­ing it and car­ry­ing it with me in­to sta­di­ums all around the world.

“To­day the time has come to pass it on to the fu­ture. It was not an easy de­ci­sion be­cause some de­ci­sions are not made with the mind alone. They are al­so made with the heart. A jour­ney that be­gan in Au­gust 2003 and changed my life for­ev­er has come to an end.”Por­tu­gal plans trib­ute to ‘great­est of all time’

While long-time peer Li­onel Mes­si fin­ished his ca­reer with Ar­genti­na af­ter a much an­tic­i­pat­ed farewell match last month, Ronal­do’s fi­nal ap­pear­ance with Por­tu­gal has end­ed up be­ing on Sept. 24 in a 1-0 win over Wales in the Na­tions League.

Je­sus kept him on the bench for the fol­low­ing match and said he didn’t plan to start him in the next one, so Ronal­do de­cid­ed to leave the team’s train­ing camp. Je­sus lat­er said Ronal­do would be wel­come back and the de­ci­sion to re­turn was up to him.

The Por­tuguese soc­cer fed­er­a­tion re­leased a state­ment ex­press­ing “deep grat­i­tude and im­mense ad­mi­ra­tion” for Ronal­do’s ser­vice to the coun­try.

“Cris­tiano Ronal­do has raised Por­tu­gal’s pro­file and in­spired gen­er­a­tions of young peo­ple who dream of fol­low­ing in his foot­steps; for many of us, he is the great­est play­er of all time!” the fed­er­a­tion said.

It said it in­tends to or­ga­nize a trib­ute to Ronal­do “in which the fans and the coun­try can one more time ap­plaud and cel­e­brate a play­er who has giv­en us so much.”

Like Mes­si, Ronal­do will keep play­ing at club lev­el, and is ex­pect­ed to fin­ish his club ca­reer at the end of this sea­son with Al-Nassr in Sau­di Ara­bia.

He is in pur­suit of his 1,000th ca­reer goal and sits on 985. Of those, a record 146 goals came in 234 ap­pear­ances with Por­tu­gal.

LIS­BON, Por­tu­gal (AP)