Ronaldo retires from Portugal: what his 146-goal record includes

Portugal will prepare for its next major tournament without Cristiano Ronaldo. The 41-year-old announced his retirement from international football on Thursday, November 5, ending a 23-year national-team career. He will continue playing for Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia, AP reports.

He leaves with 146 goals and 234 appearances, both records in men’s international football. UEFA’s career record traces the goals individually.

For anyone who mainly watches the World Cup and European Championship, that scoring total covers much more than the tournaments themselves. UEFA’s competition breakdown shows that 82 came in qualifying—the matches played to get there:

Adding the rows gives 146. The calculation 82 ÷ 146 × 100 = 56.16% puts qualifying at approximately 56% of his goals.

Qualifying determines entry to those tournaments. “Final tournaments” means the whole event once teams have qualified, including group matches and the later knockout rounds. It does not mean only the championship-deciding match.

Ronaldo’s first Portugal goal makes the terminology concrete. UEFA’s individual goal log records a header, assisted by Luís Figo, against Greece on June 12, 2004. Portugal lost 2–1. That goal belongs in the European Championship final-tournament column because it came in the group stage.

The qualifying column has its own consequential nights. In November 2013, Ronaldo scored the only goal in a home win over Sweden, then scored all three Portugal goals in a 3–2 away victory four days later. UEFA lists both matches as World Cup play-offs: all four goals count toward qualifying. The label describes the route into the tournament; it cannot tell you how memorable a match was.

The 56% share tells us where the goals were scored. It cannot establish opponent difficulty or rank Ronaldo against players from other eras.

Portugal had reached only three World Cups before Ronaldo’s international career; it qualified for every edition during it. The team won its first major title at Euro 2016, followed by Nations League titles in 2019 and 2025. AP describes that transformation across successive generations of teammates.

His retirement announcement came after his final appearance. AP identifies that match as Portugal’s 1–0 Nations League win over Wales on September 24. It reports that Ronaldo subsequently left the training camp after coach Jorge Jesus benched him and said he did not plan to start him in the following match. Jesus later said Ronaldo was welcome back and that returning was his decision. AP also reports the federation’s intention to organize a tribute, with no date or farewell fixture specified in the statement it quotes.

Fernando Gomes, president of the Portuguese Olympic Committee, offered a different measure of the departure. In his November 5 tribute, he recalled accompanying Ronaldo during his 13 years at the football federation and described images of the player representing Portugal as part of the country’s collective memory.