With Spain beating Portugal 1–0 in the Round of 16 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the world has witnessed the last World Cup performance of one of the all-time greats in football, Cristiano Ronaldo.
The man himself admitted that this was the last game he played in the world’s premier international football competition—he will resist the allure to play in the 2030 World Cup co-hosted by his home country of Portugal. He would be aged 45 at the time.
Thus, with Spain beating Portugal 1–0 in the Round of 16 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, we also know for sure that Cristiano Ronaldo will retire without ever winning the World Cup. This will certainly put him at a disadvantage in the ‘greatest footballer of all time’ debates against the likes of Pelé (who won it three times), Diego Maradona (who won it once and played in another final), Zinedine Zidane (who also won it once and and played in another final), and—the person he is most often compared to—Lionel Messi (who, as of now, has won it once and has played in another final). Ferenc Puskás of Hungary is another name that at times comes up in the debate. He too ended his career without a World Cup win, but did play and even score the opener in the 1954 World Cup final in Switzerland.
The best showing by Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal at a Mundial was a semi-final finish in 2006, the first one where Ronaldo got to represent his country.
However, there is an important aspect of that debate that is often overlooked.
All the players listed above won the World Cup for countries with large populations and rich footballing traditions already established by the time they made their first appearance for the national team.
Brazil had rapid population growth in the 1950s, reaching 70 million people by the end of the decade. It also had a fanatic, immense fan base for football that viewed it as a great national tragedy when they lost the World Cup title to Uruguay at the 1950 World Cup, coming in second after losing the title decider game in front of over 100,000 people at the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This was the environment in which the 17-year-old boy genius Pelé won the first World Cup for the football-loving Brazilian nation in 1958.
In 1986, when Maradona led them to glory, Argentina had a population of around 30 million people and had won the title just eight years ago. By 2022, the South American nation had grown to 46 million. Messi captained a national team with two World Cups and 15 Copa America titles in Qatar, the campaign that ended in his and the Albiceleste’s ultimate triumph.
France first won the World Cup on their home turf under Zinedine Zidane’s leadership on the pitch in 1998. However, they had already won the European Championship in 1984 (spearheaded by another occasional contender for football’s greatest ever, three-time Ballon d’Or winner Michel Platini). As for population size, France had around 60 million people living there at the time.
We have taken excessive note of each nation’s population size at the time of its respective World Cup win. The reason for it is this: Portugal pales in comparison to all of them in that regard. The potential talent pool that was there to support Cristiano Ronaldo in his effort to claim football’s most coveted title for his nation was considerably smaller than for any of the other ‘GOAT candidate’ players listed above.
In 2004 when Ronaldo first represented his nation at the major tournament, the 2004 Euros hosted by Portugal, the Southern European country had 10.5 million residents. They reached the final on their home turn, but ultimately lost to Greece in one of the greatest underdog stories in football history.
Currently, Portugal’s population is estimated to be around 11 million. The closest in that regard was Maradona’s Argentina in 1986, with around 30 million people, nearly three times the size.
‘I won three titles with Portugal. Before Cristiano, Portugal had never won a big trophy. The best trophy I won with the national team was 2016, which for me has the same dimension as the World Cup. So I repeat: I leave here with a clear conscience,’ Ronaldo told the press after his farewell World Cup appearance against Spain, as quoted by The Guardian.
He is absolutely correct: Ronaldo was a key player not only in the first Portuguese side to reach the European Championship final in 2004, but also the first to actually win the continental trophy, overcoming the home turf advantage of France in the final in 2016.
However, he was a little misleading with the inclusion of the two Nations League titles he has won, as that competition simply did not exist before his national team debut; thus, his preceding generations evidently could not win it.
It is also important to note that Portugal's best World Cup performance ever was long before Cristiano Ronaldo's time. In 1966, the Portuguese came in third in England. The most influential player in that squad was Eusébio. However, Portugal did not even qualify for the World Cup for 20 years thereafter, until 1986.
Cristiano Ronaldo holds a number of impressive records in international football.
He is the only player in the game's history to score in six different World Cup tournaments. He and Messi are the only two to make an appearance in six; however, Messi scored no goals in the 2010 World Cup, unlike Ronaldo.
The Portuguese legend is also the most capped player in the world, with 233 appearances for Portugal. During those, he has scored 146 goals, another world record. And here's something we did not mention at the beginning of this piece: while he did confirm that he will not play in any more World Cup games, he was not as unequivocal about retiring from the Portuguese national team as a whole. In other words, he is contemplating making another run in the Euros in 2028, further extending his record in international appearances and goals.
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