Portugal’s 2026 World Cup ended in the round of 16 with a 1-0 defeat to Spain, a late Mikel Merino goal extinguishing Cristiano Ronaldo’s sixth and final campaign. The 41-year-old, who had scored three times in the tournament including his first-ever knockout-phase goal against Croatia, left the pitch in tears. He later confirmed the match was his last on football’s biggest stage, closing a two-decade pursuit of the one major trophy missing from his collection.

Within days, a sharp accusation emerged from France. Youri Djorkaeff, a World Cup winner in 1998, told RMC that Ronaldo had been deliberately sidelined by his own teammates. “If you bring Cristiano Ronaldo, the team has to play for Cristiano Ronaldo, and that absolutely did not happen,” Djorkaeff said. “You could see he was boycotted by his own team. They didn’t give him the passes he needed, they didn’t put him in the best positions.” The claim, amplified by outlets in Portugal, Argentina and Indonesia, framed the elimination not as a tactical failure but as an internal rupture, with Djorkaeff adding that the squad appeared to shift responsibility onto the captain.

Ronaldo’s response came not in words but in imagery. On the tenth anniversary of Portugal’s Euro 2016 triumph, he posted two photographs on social media: one of him lifting the Henri Delaunay trophy, another with the cup and a clenched fist. The caption read “A victory of millions!” The timing, as World Cup quarter-finals were being played, was widely interpreted as a deliberate juxtaposition. He had already told reporters that the European title “has the same dimension as a World Cup, sincerely,” a sentiment noted in Arabic-language and Spanish-language coverage as a defiant reframing of his international legacy.

Across six World Cups, Ronaldo made 28 appearances, scored 11 goals, and never advanced beyond the semi-finals. The 2026 edition saw him equalise against Croatia in the last 16, a personal milestone, but the Spain defeat left Portugal’s campaign in the same round where it had ended four years earlier. Djorkaeff’s intervention, viewed from Paris, added a layer of recrimination rarely aired so publicly by a former champion about an active squad. In Lisbon, the debate turned to whether the tactical setup had failed the player or the player had become incompatible with the collective.

Ronaldo stated he would take time with his family before deciding on his international future. Portugal’s next competitive engagement is the Nations League, where the European champions will begin a new cycle without the certainty of their record scorer leading the line.