Ronaldo leaves Portugal training camp

Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo announced on Wednesday that he had left the team’s training camp in Denmark after coach Jorge Jesus told reporters that the striker would be dropped for their next match.

Ronaldo had been due to train with his team-mates at the Parken stadium in Copenhagen on Wednesday but left abruptly after Jesus’s press conference.

The veteran coach had said that Ronaldo, who spent the entire match on the bench against Norway on Sunday, would not start Thursday’s Nations League clash away to Denmark either.

“Following the national team coach’s press conference, and after having a conversation with the Portuguese Football Federation president, I decided to leave the national team’s training camp,” Ronaldo wrote on Instagram.

“In due course, I will tell the truth to all the Portuguese people about my reasons for leaving the national team, to which I have always been dedicated.

“Now is time to wish good luck to Portugal and to all my team-mates, without exception.”

Jesus had insisted earlier that there was no rift between him and Ronaldo, although the 72-year-old did acknowledge that his captain had been disappointed to remain on the bench in the side’s Nations League win over Norway.

The news sparked a wave of memes on social media and furious backlash from Ronaldo’s sister, Elma Aveiro.

“They don’t deserve to have the best of anything,” she said about the Portuguese people on Instagram.

“We are envious, scornful, and ignorant, and we deserve to return to the mediocrity that defined us in the pre-CR7 era of football.”

Following the 2-1 victory in Oslo, Ronaldo went straight to the changing rooms without joining his team-mates in acknowledging the Portuguese supporters in the stands.

“There was no incident whatsoever,” Jesus told reporters.
“Any player — and I was a player myself… when you spend 20 or 30 minutes warming up and then don’t get on… no one is happy about that,” Jesus said on Wednesday.