“Miúdo respira, respira miúdo,” Fernando Couto called out. Just breathe, kid, just breathe.Couto, then captain of Portugal, stood at the dusk of a storied career that had left him little to learn. Yet nothing had prepared him for the teenager at the Euro 2004 camp. Lanky, speedy, taped ears, chestnut-brown curls with copper highlights tumbling over his forehead in a carefree, almost rebellious fashion.Many traits set the boy apart, and one above all: hunger. He ran through training with such abandon that Couto feared he would run himself into the ground.He would soon learn that Cristiano Ronaldo could not be stopped. In the opener, Portugal trailed Greece 2-0 in the 93rd minute. Every shoulder had dropped, save for one. Ronaldo sprinted to meet a corner, jumped the highest and scored his first international goal at 19 years and 128 days.That hunger would feed him 145 more. Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo (7) celebrates after scoring their opening goal during the World Cup round of 32 soccer match between Portugal and Croatia in Toronto, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)The spotlight was not yet his. The squad was glittered with Luis Figo, a national icon decorated by both Barcelona and Real Madrid, and with Rui Costa, a Champions League winner with AC Milan. “He was somewhat unnoticed amidst the likes of Couto, Figo, Rui Costa and Deco,” recalled Carlos Godinho, then the team’s director.But by the end of the tournament, the stage was his. “That goal against the Netherlands revealed his genius. He was perhaps the greatest legacy of Euro 2004.”Story continues below this adThe tournament, as so often in his career, ended in tears: inconsolable, unrelenting, and born of agony rather than joy. Portugal lost the final 1-0 to Greece, and Ronaldo knew precisely what had slipped away. “We don’t deserve to lose like this. I am an ambitious person. I wanted to become a European champion at 19,” he said. Then came a promise: “This doesn’t end here.”Twelve years later, he would cry again, for a very different reason.***You’re gonna kick off before you even get halfway through.When will you realise Vienna waits for you?On the eve of the 2014 World Cup, José Carlos Noronha, Ronaldo’s doctor, delivered a warning: “Let your knee rest, or your future is in danger.”Story continues below this adRonaldo then was among the finest the game has known. Boyish unruliness had yielded to cultivated sharpness; the curls had given way to slicked, architecturally precise hair, the skeletal frame to sculpted muscle. He had scored 51 goals for Real Madrid that season, 17 of them in the Champions League, a record that still stands. The Ballon d’Or was his. Through it all, his knee had been quietly taking its toll.Medical advice did not detain him. “I’m at 100 percent. I want to have a great World Cup,” he announced before the opener against Germany. Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, right, leads a tearful Cristiano Ronaldo to collect his runners-up medal after Greece beat Portugal 1-0 in the Euro 2004 soccer championship final match at the Luz stadium in Lisbon, Portugal, Sunday, July 4, 2004. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)Disaster followed. Portugal lost 4-0, drew with the United States and were eliminated at the group stage for the first time in the Ronaldo era. He directed the blame at the collective rather than the individual.“I’m not a hypocrite, I never thought we could win the tournament,” he would say in a press conference that left his nation, and beyond, stupefied. “Maybe we’re an average team. It would be a lie to say that we are a top team. We have a very limited team.”***But you know that when the truth is toldStory continues below this adThat you can get what you want or you can just get oldWhen Fernando Santos named his squad for Euro 2016, he did what any manager worth his salt would and spoke of winning the trophy, though with a bullish disclaimer.“Portugal does not enter as the favourite, we have never claimed to be, but we have the ambition to fight for that goal.”Yet, this was the first, and to date, the only Portugal team to win the continental crown. With five goal contributions, Ronaldo was seen at his near-best. While he could only feature for 25 minutes in the final before getting injured, his presence on the touchline had a big effect on the team.Story continues below this adAlso Read | Cristiano Ronaldo and the father who never saw him become greatThe very team he had once called average now punched above its weight for him. “It was tough to lose our main man. We said we would win it for him,” said Pepe.Éder, who scored the winner, added: “Cristiano told me I would score the winning goal. He gave us all his courage and his strength.”“No one believed in us,” Ronaldo said after the triumph.But by then, everyone did.***Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true,When will you realise Vienna waits for you?Story continues below this ad“I gave it my all, I did my best, and I’m leaving with a clear conscience,” Ronaldo said after Portugal’s 1-0 exit to Spain in the 2026 World Cup’s Round of 16, a match in which he touched the ball just 19 times, fewer than the goalkeeper. The best from football’s best was simply not enough.The defeat cost hed coach Roberto Martínez his job. In came Jorge Jesus, under whom Ronaldo had won his first Saudi Pro League title. The appointment was meant to rejuvenate a veteran. “Cris will never be a problem,” the coach said.Portugal estará sempre em mim https://t.co/dnFj51rxmh— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) November 5, 2026In only his second game in charge, Jesus found it fitting to leave Ronaldo on the bench. A public fallout ensued. And, as it turned out, Ronaldo’s last action for the national team was running down the tunnel without applauding travelling supporters.The ledger reads: 146 goals, the most in international football. The first Portuguese footballer to lead his nation to a trophy. The first man to play in six World Cups. Three trophies, none of them the World Cup. And controversies aplenty.How, then, to describe what he leaves behind?In his retirement video, Ronaldo offers his own answer: “When I look back and remember everything I lived through with the national team, I do not see only matches, goals, records and trophies, but I see people.”Story continues below this adIn 2022, 31,583 newborns in Peru were named after him, more than for anyone else. The people, as he calls them, are what he has earned.