The five-time Ballon d'Or winner clearly cannot accept the fact that his national team would be better off without him

Cristiano Ronaldo has never had any time for his critics, so he was always going to ignore calls for him to retire from international football after his embarrassing Euro 2024 campaign.

"The people who give their opinions have never been in a dressing room," the Portugal legend recently told reporters. "I often laugh about it because it would be the same thing as me talking about Formula 1. How can I give my opinion on Formula 1 if I don't know anything about tyres, rims, or the weight of the car?"

It's a fair question. But then again, you don't have to be a former F1 driver to recognise a car crash when you see one – or an ex-professional footballer to realise when a player is finished at the very highest level.

Getty ImagesChance to 'start a new cycle'

It was clear after the 2022 World Cup that Ronaldo no longer deserved to be a starter for the Seleccao. Fernando Santos had even come to that conclusion during the tournament in Qatar and made the brave call to drop his captain for the last-16 clash with Switzerland. Replacement Goncalo Ramos responded by scoring a historic hat-trick as Portugal triumphed 6-1 in Lusail.

However, the shock quarter-final loss to Morocco left Santos vulnerable, and the man who masterminded Portugal's Euro 2016 triumph resigned just five days after that 1-0 defeat in Doha.

According to the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), it was time "to start a new cycle", offering the incoming coach a perfect opportunity to rebuild without Ronaldo. Roberto Martinez instead opted to immediately fly to Saudi Arabia and convince the captain to continue. It was a catastrophic error, one compounded by Martinez's repeated refusal to drop Ronaldo at Euro 2024.

AdvertisementGettyShameful show of selfishness

Ronaldo's uncharacteristically unselfish assist for Bruno Fernandes in the group-stage win over Turkey was promptly portrayed as evidence of the skipper's supposed transformation into a team player. However, that illusion had been shattered long before Portugal's quarter-final loss to a desperately weak France team that could easily have been beaten had Martinez played either Diogo Jota or Ramos up front in Hamburg.

By that stage, though, Martinez had clearly decided that there was no going back. Ronaldo's right to lead the line was the hill he was willing to die on and he couldn't even bring himself to rest the 39-year-old in Portugal's final group game against Georgia.

The likes of Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva were dropped to the bench as Martinez made eight changes to his starting line-up, but Ronaldo started yet again. Another goal-less display only heightened the striker’s sense of desperation, and what we saw against Slovenia in the last 16 was the most pathetic and shameful show of selfishness ever seen on a football field, with the five-time Ballon d'Or winner taking ever more ludicrous strikes on goal in a bid to break his tournament duck.

GettyIt all ends in tears – again

It was genuinely tough to watch one of the finest players of all time embarrassing himself in such fashion and he ended up not only hurting his team, but also himself, with Ronaldo bursting into tears not long after missing a penalty in extra-time. He shouldn't have even been on the field at that stage, but Martinez's complete lack of a backbone had already been laid bare and, ultimately, he and Ronaldo were bailed out by Diogo Costa's heroics in the shootout.

Martinez, the master of misdirection, attempted to portray Ronaldo's reaction to his spot-kick miss as evidence of his patriotism, but as the man himself subsequently confessed, he hadn’t been thinking about Portugal at all. He was simply upset with having allowed Jan Oblak to ruin his run of successful penalty attempts.

It was a remarkable revelation, simultaneously shocking and yet utterly unsurprising, an astonishing admission that, as far as Ronaldo is concerned, it really is all about him. It was, therefore, inevitable that he would resist all pressure to retire, making it clear that he only cares about doing what is best for him.

It was at this point that Martinez should have intervened.

Getty'Criticism gives me more motivation'

Ronaldo’s superpower has always been his unwavering sense of self-belief; now, though, it's become his weakness. It’s as if he has lost all grip on reality, because he really does seem to believe he can get the better of the undefeated Father Time, which is simply delusional.

After being predictably picked for Portugal's latest Nations League squad, Ronaldo said that he had never even considered quitting international football: "Quite the opposite, in fact. The criticism gives me even more motivation to continue, to be honest."

He also claimed that he'll know when the time is right for him to walk away. "If I feel like I'm no longer contributing anything, I'll be the first to leave,” he insisted. “It won't be a difficult decision to make."

All of the evidence points to the contrary, though. Even Ronaldo's former Manchester United team-mate Gary Neville has serious reservations over whether the veteran superstar knows when to walk away.

"I don't think he's [Cristiano Ronaldo] got it in him," Neville told . "The player sometimes knows when to let it go, but there are some players who don't and need telling, but there is an element here of who tells [Ronaldo]?"

Because Martinez clearly doesn't have that in him either.