Cristiano Ronaldo left Portugal’s training camp on Wednesday, 30 September, hours after head coach Jorge Jesus told reporters at Copenhagen’s Parken stadium that the 41-year-old would start the Nations League tie with Denmark on the bench. He had already sat out the entire match against Norway three days earlier, an unused substitute as his side won 2-1.

“Following the national team manager’s press conference, and after a conversation with the President of the Portuguese Football Federation, I have 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.”

Jesus, who managed Ronaldo at Al-Nassr before taking the Portugal job, held his line.

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“There was no incident whatsoever. 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,” he told reporters, as reported by Al Jazeera.

Back to Riyadh with 21 to go

Al-Nassr host Al-Diriyah on Friday, 9 October at Al-Awwal Park, kick-off 9pm local time, in Saudi Pro League matchday 8, confirmed as his next fixture after the Copenhagen walkout. The game resumes a scoring run that has only stalled around his international dates: three league goals in five starts this season for Ange Postecoglou’s side, taking his overall tally to 979 after the 2-1 win against Abha in September.

That leaves 21 goals between him and a landmark no professional footballer has reached. The 1,000-goal projection depends on how often he features and how often he scores. One pace analysis cited by beIN Sports put the rate required to reach the figure before year’s end at roughly 1.31 goals per match across Al-Nassr’s remaining fixtures, with the more plausible window falling in the 2026-27 season.

The pace of a 41-year-old

The milestones have accelerated rather than slowed:

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• 900th goal: 5 September 2024, Portugal 2-1 Croatia, UEFA Nations League, a 34th-minute tap-in from a Nuno Mendes cross.
• 950th goal: 2 September 2025, Al-Nassr 2-0 Al-Hazem, Saudi Pro League.
• 979th goal: 11 September 2026, Al-Nassr 2-1 Abha, Saudi Pro League.

Fifty goals in the twelve months between the 900th and the 950th, another 29 in the year since: a rhythm that, at 41, would land the 1,000th somewhere in this season.

Postecoglou, appointed in July after Al-Nassr’s first Saudi Pro League title in seven years, inherits a squad scoring freely around their No 7. Ronaldo’s record for Portugal, meanwhile, stands at 146 international goals, the most by any men’s player.

The next step in the count comes against Al-Diriyah in Riyadh on 9 October.

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