Nothing in Portugal rises above the news of captain Cristiano Ronaldo's departure from the Portugal national team's camp, in protest at his limited playing time under coach Jorge Jesus.
Nuno Travassos, deputy editor-in-chief of the Portuguese newspaper A Bola, ran an article under the headline "Trump has already called Jesus".
Travassos wrote: "After the intervention of Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, all that remains is the intervention of United States President Donald Trump to resolve the war inside the national team, but it is still difficult to imagine a genuine peace agreement."
He continued: "Social media is malicious. During these days, an article appeared before me talking about an appeal Trump made to Ronaldo: we need you."
"For a moment, I thought the dispute inside the Portugal national team had already reached the White House, where Portugal's captain was present in November 2025," Travassos explained.
He went on: "But Trump's appeal to Ronaldo dated back to February of this year. Even so, the matter did not seem to me so far-fetched, for after the intervention of Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, Jesus may already have received a phone call from the President of the United States of America, winner of the FIFA Peace Prize."
"The global spread this dispute has acquired may be a final proof of the scale of the status Ronaldo has reached in the world of football, but it also directly reflects the scale of the conduct carried out by the player himself," he stressed.
He pointed out: "Until now, Jorge Jesus alone has been required to explain what happened. What matters most is still to hear Ronaldo's account, as well as that of the president of the Portuguese Football Federation, but until this moment no account has emerged that justifies the national team captain's departure at a time when he was supposed to be in full readiness to perform his duties."
The deputy editor-in-chief of A Bola carried on: "The frustration of sitting on the substitutes' bench without playing, in a match he was not supposed to play in the first place, does not justify turning his back on his teammates and the fans, even if he later received instructions saying he would play for 30 minutes, and even if he spent a long time warming up."
"This happened in the new coach's second match, that coach being Jesus, but it could have been José Mourinho or Rúben Amorim or Sérgio Conceição," he noted. "Ronaldo did not stop to think that many of his teammates had been through the same situation before, and with some of them it happened because the coaches feared substituting him, as the indispensable star whose image tops the scene. In that moment, no one put himself in the other's place, and especially Cristiano, who was not used to being a player who could be dispensed with."
He added: "He made a mistake, but it is precisely here that the value of his status appears. If there is one person who has a margin for error, it is Ronaldo, but after that the captain, who gave his country strength on many occasions, had also to know how to show his weakness. Ronaldo continued the mistake after listening to the coach's press conference. He had every right to leave, but it was he who chose to go out through the back door. When he left the stadium in that black car, instead of the bus alongside his teammates, he chose a road that seems to go in only one direction."
Travassos concluded: "No one benefits from this war, but it is difficult to imagine an agreement that brings genuine peace to the Portugal national team. Finding a solution for another farewell is the minimum required, but even that will no longer carry the dignity it should have had."