The 2026 FIFA World Cup’s round of 16 delivered one of the tournament’s most poignant moments in Dallas, as a 1-0 extra-time win for Spain over Portugal closed the book on what is almost certainly Cristiano Ronaldo’s final appearance at the global competition.
Mikel Merino’s injury-time winner secured Spain’s spot in the quarter-finals, but the post-match narrative centered squarely on Ronaldo, the 41-year-old Portuguese icon who left the pitch in tears as his decades-long World Cup dream of lifting the trophy went unfulfilled. Long lauded as one of the greatest players to ever step onto a football pitch, Ronaldo retires from World Cup competition holding a host of unparalleled records: he is the only player to score in six consecutive World Cups, one of just two players to feature in six tournaments alongside long-time rival Lionel Messi, and he retires with 11 total World Cup goals, good for ninth on the all-time leaderboard.
Across his entire club and international career, Ronaldo has notched a world-record 976 goals, claimed five Ballon d’Or awards, five Champions League titles, and a European Championship crown with Portugal in 2016. Yet despite 20 years of World Cup appearances dating back to 2006, when Portugal reached the semi-finals – his deepest run in the competition – the sport’s biggest prize eluded him entirely.
While Ronaldo has confirmed this was his final World Cup, he has not yet confirmed his retirement from international football, telling reporters post-match that he would “meet the family and take decisions with a calm head” on his future with the national side. Still, the loss sparked immediate and fierce debate over whether Portugal manager Roberto Martinez’s decision to consistently start Ronaldo, despite the forward’s reduced form and output, ultimately cost the team a deeper run in the tournament.
Match statistics underscore the critiques of Ronaldo’s role in the side: against Spain, he touched the ball just 19 times across 90 minutes, registered three shots, created only one goal-scoring chance for a teammate, and across five World Cup matches, he created just one total chance. While he ended the tournament with three goals and 18 total shots – tied with seven-goal joint-top scorer Erling Haaland for the fourth-most attempts at the tournament – 366 other players recorded more touches than Ronaldo, despite him missing just nine minutes of Portugal’s entire campaign.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live from the match venue in Texas, former England striker and BBC pundit Chris Sutton did not mince words in his criticism of both Ronaldo and Martinez. “He’s waddling around the field like a grandad, that’s why Portugal are out,” Sutton said. “Cristiano Ronaldo does nothing; he did nothing. What is Roberto Martinez doing? How can you pander to a player so much? Portugal are out because of Roberto Martinez.”
Sutton doubled down on his criticism of Martinez for failing to insert young in-form striker Goncalo Ramos, who scored a hat-trick in the 2022 World Cup round of 16 after then-manager Fernando Santos dropped Ronaldo to the bench. “How did Goncalo Ramos not get on the pitch? It’s an absolute embarrassment from the manager, just pandering to his star player,” Sutton said. “He’s the most decorated player that Portugal have ever had but you’ve got to be stronger than that. We’re four years further on, Ronaldo is four years older and look what’s happened.”
Sutton also noted that Martinez, who previously mismanaged a highly talented Belgian golden generation that crashed out of the 2022 World Cup in the group stage, repeated the same mistake with Portugal, which boasts a deep squad of elite talent including four Champions League-winning players from Paris Saint-Germain and Premier League player of the year Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United. “His job was to try and win the World Cup and put the best team out for Portugal. Has he done that? Absolutely not,” Sutton said. “It’s scandalous the way he has managed this team. He made a mess of Belgium when they had an opportunity of really doing great things with that golden generation; they ended up Belgian buffoons. Now Portugal, it was pathetic to see a manager act in that manner.”
Shortly after the final whistle, Martinez announced he would step down as Portugal manager, ending his contract which expired after the tournament. “I came to Portugal with the objective of winning the World Cup and because I haven’t won it wouldn’t make sense to continue,” he explained. The departing manager offered a glowing tribute to Ronaldo, calling him a “football icon” and defending his choice to keep the star in the starting lineup. “When you need a goal you cannot take Cristiano off, at least in 90 minutes, he is physically capable – his presence, open space, dead-ball situations, we need his experience,” Martinez said. “We need to thank him for what he tried to do at this World Cup. His dream was to win this World Cup, he did this with an amazing example. He is a prime example of football and the human being that is behind that athlete.”
The end of Ronaldo’s World Cup journey also closes a defining chapter in modern football fandom: the decades-long rivalry between Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. For generations, fans have divided into camps aligned with one player or the other in the endless debate over who deserves the title of the greatest of all time, a rivalry explored in a new BBC iPlayer documentary released this summer. While neither player had won the World Cup through 2022, Messi claimed the trophy with Argentina in Qatar four years ago, eliminating the only major mark against his legacy. Now, Ronaldo will finish his career without ever lifting the prize.
Today, as both legends wind down their careers – Ronaldo plying his trade in Saudi Arabia’s Pro League with Al-Nassr and Messi playing in Major League Soccer with Inter Miami – Messi continues to outperform his old rival at the 2026 World Cup, currently sitting as joint-top scorer with seven goals, matching his 2022 output. Ronaldo has scored just four goals across his last two World Cup tournaments, and sits second to Messi on the all-time World Cup goalscoring list, with 11 to Messi’s 20.
Former Manchester United teammate Wayne Rooney paid tribute to Ronaldo’s unprecedented career following the exit. “He is a genius, a superstar. What he has given to football and millions of people is something very rare,” Rooney said. “He will be disappointed because he believed he could win this tournament. But time gets us all. It’s a sad day for football.”
Many Portugal fans who spoke to the BBC after the match shared that same sense of emotion but chose to celebrate Ronaldo’s legacy rather than lament the defeat. “One of my dreams was to watch Ronaldo live. I was happy to see him. He has meant a lot,” one fan said. “I’m really emotional. We were just not lucky this time. What Ronaldo has done has been beautiful. We don’t have to cry, we have to laugh because we saw him.”