06/10/2026
🚨‼️ 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆: 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐎 𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐃𝐎 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐔𝐆𝐀𝐋 🇵🇹
As I promised, I decided to recount, in the first person and directly, the circumstances surrounding the last training camp of the National Team.
After the 2026 World Cup I prepared a letter to the Portuguese people, which I still keep, with the words I want to address to them when I leave our team for good.
At the end of the competition, already on the flight back from the United States, the President of the Federation asked and insisted that I reconsider the decision to leave, because the FPF wanted me to continue.
Right afterwards he asked me for my opinion on the name of the current head coach, which he was considering alongside other names he did not reveal to me.
I told the President of the Federation that, in my opinion, it would be the right choice.
That is why, on the day the current head coach was presented, I was genuinely happy with the choice. It was the right option, as the results are confirming.
A few days later I received a first contact from the new national team coach saying he would like to meet me in person. I said yes and we scheduled it for the end of my holidays.
We met at the Cidade do Futebol, where my club was holding its pre-season training camp.
That day the coach told me he was counting on me and that my presence was fundamental to his project. He presented me, right there, with a plan for my participation. He told me I would play the first match and the last one, and that for reasons of physical management he would always make three to four changes per match.
At that point he raised the possibility of me not travelling with the national team to Norway and Denmark. He proposed that I play the first match and stay in Portugal, then rejoin before the match at the Dragão.
I refused this proposal immediately. It seemed obvious to me that I could not accept it. It was not because I would not play the matches abroad that I would stop captaining our team. That privilege of staying in Portugal would not be a good example.
The coach ended up agreeing with my analysis.
This conversation was attended by Simão Coutinho, sporting director of Al Nassr, the person to whom the current coach reported throughout last season and one of those responsible for his signing by the club in 2025.
On the eve of the start of the camp the coach came to my house in Lisbon, at his request, for another conversation with me. The conversation was calm and all the principles agreed in August were maintained.
I played the match at Alvalade and, although substituted, I made no problem of it. I put the armband on Bruno Fernandes myself, far from imagining that I might be taking my last steps as a player and captain of the National Team. What mattered to me that day was our victory. Winning is always good; in Portugal and for my country, even better.
At lunchtime on the day of the match in Norway, an assistant to the coach came to the table where the group was having lunch and informed me that the coach wanted to speak to me.
To my absolute surprise, the coach asked me if I was fit to play 30 minutes. I was fully focused on my physical recovery, integrated with my teammates as always, and thinking that I would not play that day. Without any problem.
This request was something outside my physical recovery and training plan — because I was only going to play on the 4th at the Dragão — but of course I said yes. He replied that I should then be ready because I would play 30 minutes.
The rest everyone knows. I warmed up from half-time, watched the minutes go by, and was not called.
The coach had broken his word to me.
