Alberto Costa got the senior Portugal call-up he had wanted since he was a boy. He got it five days after the man he most wanted to meet walked out.

“With great regret, I didn’t find Cristiano here. It was something I wanted for my career, to have shared the dressing room with him,” the Porto right-back told reporters at the Portuguese Football Federation’s headquarters on Tuesday.

Costa, who has 14 appearances for Porto across all competitions this season, is one of seven new faces in Jorge Jesus’s first squad since Ronaldo’s exit. He is in line for a role at right-back in the Nations League group fixtures against Denmark in Braga on 14 November and Wales in Cardiff on 17 November.

Ronaldo left the camp in September

The split with Jesus had grown out of a row over playing time. Ronaldo was benched by the coach in a September Nations League fixture, left the national-team camp when he understood he would not start the following match, and was fined and suspended for 30 days by the Portuguese federation.

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Weeks of silence followed. Then, on 5 November, a short Instagram video closed the door on 23 years of international football.

“The day has come for me to hand back the number seven shirt of our national team,” Ronaldo said in the clip, as reported by The Daily Star.

Portugal’s record goalscorer ends his international career on 234 caps and 146 goals, the men’s international record.

A new captaincy order

Jesus, when he named his squad the day after the video, said he had not expected the retirement.

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“I thought he would return. I certainly intended to call him up,” he said.

The coach set out a new captaincy order that runs from Bernardo Silva through Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo, Ruben Neves and Bruno Fernandes. Alongside Costa, the new faces were Antonio Silva, Matheus Fernandes, Carlos Forbs, Geovany Quenda, Rodrigo Mora and Gustavo Varela. Francisco Conceicao was absent through suspension and Nuno Mendes through injury.

Costa’s own case for staying

Costa was asked at the press conference whether this was the best moment of his young career. He did not pretend to be certain.

“I feel I’m in a good moment, also because of the team, because of what we’ve been doing at FC Porto,” he told reporters. His stated goal from here was simple: to be called up again.

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Portugal face Denmark in Braga on Saturday at 7:45pm local time.

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