Three weeks ago, the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) was fining Cristiano Ronaldo €255 and backdating a 30-day suspension to October 1 for walking out of the national camp. On Wednesday, it was calling him “captain” in public again.
The pivot came after France Football announced that Ronaldo’s 2008 Ballon d’Or had won the BOAT (Ballon d’Or of All Time) fan vote, taken from 70 years of winners. His Manchester United season beat Lionel Messi’s 2012 campaign at Barcelona, according to the organisers, with voting closing on October 27 and the result unveiled a day later.
The FPF reacted within hours.
“From 2008 to eternity, the best Ballon d’Or in history is Portuguese, congratulations captain,” the national team’s official account posted, a dramatically warmer tone than its last communications about the 41-year-old.
Read also: Volkanovski: ‘I’ll fight Tsarukyan if Gaethje won’t step up’
The suspension still fresh
The row that produced the suspension began on September 27, when Ronaldo sat on the bench for the full 90 minutes of Portugal’s 2-1 away win over Norway in the Nations League. He left camp on September 30, before the next fixture against Denmark.
Ronaldo’s own account of what went wrong appeared in Yahoo Sports on October 6. He said Jorge Jesus had promised him 30 minutes against Norway and then not used him.
“I warmed up from half-time, watched the minutes go by, and was not called. The coach had broken his word to me,” Ronaldo told associates close to him, according to the Yahoo report.
He also accused Jesus of agreeing to publicly acknowledge the mistake at a news conference and then failing to do so, which Ronaldo described as a second broken promise.
Read also: “He can win games on his own”: Terry Butcher makes surprise Messi and Maradona comparison
Ronaldo wants an apology Jesus has not given
Portugal’s 55-man preliminary squad for November, which covers the Nations League quarter-final against Denmark on November 14 and a trip to Wales on November 17, includes Ronaldo’s name. Jesus is due to cut it to the final list on November 6.
The coach has already left the door open publicly. “If he wants to, he’ll return to the national team,” he told reporters, according to ESPN.
The problem, ESPN added, is that Ronaldo himself has told people around him he will not come back while Jesus is in charge. Sources told the broadcaster that the forward wanted a direct apology from the coach at that news conference, did not get one, and has hardened his position since.
Portugal are already through to the quarter-finals, having won all four of their group matches, three of them without Ronaldo. The Denmark fixture is on November 14 in the first of the two-legged tie.
Read also: “They don’t want to go”: Stephen A. Smith makes Trump White House claim about Knicks
Read also: Nine months after Adamuz, Spanish football pauses again for Urda rail disaster
