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An inviting volley blazed over the bar, a trademark free kick clattering into the wall, and a showman’s celebrations cut short by an offside goal.

In many ways, the frustrations Cristiano Ronaldo endured in his final match for Portugal reflected his long-altered reality – one of football’s most devastating players had become a liability.

For many, Ronaldo’s fall from grace could hardly be crueller.

The boy from Madeira captivated the world for years with his jaw-dropping talent, age-defying athleticism and larger-than-life personality. Yet the final chapter of his international career had anything but a fairytale ending – a forgettable climax to an otherwise illustrious journey.

Ronaldo has walked away from the national team with individual achievements most footballers can only dream of: the all-time record for international appearances (234) and goals (146).

“Portugal will always be a part of me,” the 41-year-old said in a five-minute video shared on Thursday, bidding goodbye to the team he first played for in 2003.

But his international retirement was hardly a surprise.

In the weeks leading up to his announcement, Ronaldo had been at the centre of a controversy, leaving fans and critics wondering if that was the end of the road for Portugal’s longstanding captain.

The forward’s waning influence on the field, a public rift with Portugal coach Jorge Jesus and a near 2,000-word statement after a dramatic mid-camp walkout were the perfect recipe for worldwide football gossip – and ultimately, retirement.

“He wanted the manager to go out and say ‘I’ve put a player on the bench at the calibre of Pele and [Diego] Maradona,’” ex-Liverpool player-turned-pundit Jamie Carragher said on The Overlap podcast.

“How do you say that about yourself? It’s mad, isn’t it?”

Ronaldo’s declining impact for Portugal

For more than two decades, Ronaldo made himself impossible to ignore in a Portugal shirt. He brought home the Selecao’s first major trophy, the Euro 2016 crown, before adding two Nations League titles in 2019 and 2025.

But the tide had begun to turn in 2022.

After being celebrated as a hero, Ronaldo slowly transitioned into the villain during the World Cup in Qatar. A lack of goals saw him dropped to the bench in two crucial knockout games, while his performances and attitude drew criticism as Portugal were sent packing in the quarterfinals.

The script repeated itself at Euro 2024 before the FIFA World Cup 2026 marked his final appearance on the sport’s biggest stage – the forward scoring three times, including his first and only World Cup knockout goal.

He bowed out of the biggest World Cup in North America as the first player to score in six editions, but those personal landmarks never translated into the trophy he sought. Portugal lost to eventual champions Spain in the last 16, and with that, Ronaldo’s dream of being crowned a world champion remained unfulfilled.

“I won Euro 2016 and, for me, that’s just as important as the World Cup. It will stay with me forever,” the five-time Ballon d’Or winner said this year, seemingly making peace with the bitter ending.

A household name

For much of his career, Ronaldo drew constant comparisons with Argentinian legend Lionel Messi; the duo igniting the debate for the “greatest of all time” (GOAT). It was, thus, rather poetic that Ronaldo followed Messi’s suit in hanging up his boots at the international level.

But there is a striking contrast in their farewells. Messi’s send-off was marked with celebrations after he guided Argentina to a second straight World Cup final. Ronaldo, on the other hand, is leaving the scene after a rather tense span in the Portugal camp, and probably without a proper goodbye on the field.

Nonetheless, Ronaldo’s announcement drew an outpouring of affection from fans and figures across the football fraternity.

Often described as a childhood idol by several teammates at club or country, Ronaldo is one of the most famous people on the planet.

Walk around your nearest park, and you’re likely to spot a kid dressed in a “Ronaldo 7” jersey, kicking a ball around.

A commercial powerhouse for his national team and clubs alike, Ronaldo’s popularity transcended sports.

“Few ‌players have ever touched the heart of football fans around the world quite like Cristiano,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said about him.

“A career defined by extraordinary talent, relentless determination and an unwavering desire to push the boundaries of what is possible.”

Ronaldo has always divided opinions

But with fame comes increased scrutiny.

While his tricks and skills earned him the honour of one of the greatest players of all time, Ronaldo’s on-field antics and perceived arrogance divided opinion in the football world.

In a recent interview with The Athletic, ex-Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag discussed his issues involving Ronaldo, alleging that the forward pulled out of training sessions during his second spell at the club and failed to raise his heart rate to the required level when he did train.

“I confronted him with this. Many times, I say, ‘Ronnie, everyone wants to work for you to bring you in the right position, but if you can’t bring yourself in the box, you can’t score’,” Ten Hag said.

“He was not capable to do this. It’s the wrong idea to put this to me that I expected him to do the pressing, that he’s exhausted. But he couldn’t. He ran neither in possession nor out of possession. The reason was because he didn’t prepare himself.

“Every top team has to embrace the top player, but the top player has to work for the team,” Ten Hag added.

While some saw Ronaldo as the icon who transformed Portuguese football, others questioned his individualism.

The debate over how best to define him will continue for years, but one thing is certain: Ronaldo’s complex legacy is perhaps summed up by his former club Man United’s famous slogan: “Hated, adored, never ignored”.

Democrats, election officials and voting rights groups have long wondered whether President Trump, upon his return to the Oval Office, would again attempt to overturn an election when his party is trailing.

It’s no longer hypothetical.

Late last week, the president directed his Department of Justice to preemptively contest a potential Republican loss in the U.S. Senate race in Alaska. The department is demanding a court hold up certification of a possible Democratic win until it’s determined whether voters were confused by having two candidates with the same name on the ballot.

Trump followed that by calling for the prosecution of Democratic candidate Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman, based on a New York Times report that her campaign helped recruit someone named Dan Sullivan to siphon away votes from the Republican incumbent, also named Dan Sullivan. The governor has ordered an investigation.

Academics believe the lawsuit is the first time since the Civil Rights era that the federal government has sued to halt certification of an election, a duty the Constitution places in the hands of states.

Trump, for years, has claimed elections are rigged when he or his party loses, and this time is no exception. He has used his midterm rallies to say Democrats cheat, criticize election officials by name and call the ranked choice voting system in Alaska, which might hold the key to Senate control, a scam.

But the certification lawsuit elevates Trump’s crusade beyond mere rhetoric, indicating that he is preparing to use the power of the presidency to try to reverse a possible loss as his party struggles to hold its control of Congress in Tuesday’s elections.

Earlier this week, the president also announced a $1 million bounty for anyone who provides proof of prior or current voter fraud in the country. It wasn’t clear whether or how he planned to follow through.

“For at least the last year and a half, they’ve been laying that groundwork,” said Theresa Lee, a senior attorney with the ACLU. “We’ve been preparing for just as long, if not longer.”

Trump says he’ll accept results if the election is ‘honest’

Trump told reporters this week that he would accept the election results, but with his typical caveat: “If they’re honest elections,” he said.

That follows a pattern. Trump has preemptively claimed that upcoming elections will be rigged and labeled elections he’s lost as stolen. It started with the 2016 Republican Iowa caucuses, when he came in second to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa,” Trump said at the time. “He stole it.”

Democrats and other groups that oppose Trump have been concerned that his words would turn into directives to have his administration interfere in the midterms. They have been running exercises for months and have lawsuits pre-written. They also plan to have tens of thousands of people monitoring the polls on Election Day.

So far, early voting has been quiet, with about 35 million people already casting ballots without any notable disruption.

In that respect, this year’s election so far resembles 2025’s off-year elections in New Jersey, Virginia and a handful of other states. Democrats braced for possible Trump action then, but the election proceeded with no major issues. But the Justice Department’s more aggressive actions this month already make 2026 different from any election in recent memory.

It has sued California to block it from counting ballots after it alleged the state had 20,000 noncitizens on its rolls and made a similar demand of Washington related to about 400 voters in that state. Both states said the demands came too close to the election to fulfill, and a federal judge Wednesday rejected the federal government’s California demands.

Earlier, the Justice Department seized ballots and election records related to the 2020 presidential election in Georgia’s Fulton County, and the administration launched a sweeping investigation of that vote, though it has yet to turn up evidence supporting Trump’s false claims of fraud.

Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department does not want to intervene in elections, but had no choice in Alaska.

“We are not doing anything improper,” Blanche said Sunday on CNN. “But I do think it’s important for the American people to understand that we are not — (and) President Trump is not — trying to take over a state election in any way, shape or form.”

After the lawsuit was filed, Trump told reporters he was the one who pushed for it: “I’m the one that said do it,” the president said.

Lawsuits seem more ‘impulsive’ than strategic

Though the Trump administration claimed to be acting on behalf of Alaska’s voters in its lawsuit to hold up certification, the president’s Republican allies in the state didn’t appear happy.

Sen. Sullivan would not say whether he supported the lawsuit. Alaska’s Republican-controlled state government filed court papers to try to have it dismissed. The state’s other Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, said the administration “should never have filed” it.

While controversial, the situation in Alaska is not that unusual. Political parties often support extra candidates on the ballot to try to pull votes from their rivals. If state courts allow it, legal experts say, the federal government has no role challenging the results.

Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, wrote that the Alaska lawsuit’s legal argument was “one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen.” He said that should reassure the public that Trump won’t be able to change election outcomes.

“The notion that there’s going to be something systemic that’s going to thwart the will of the voters seems much more speculative,” he said. “A lot of the conduct seems impulsive rather than strategic and planned.”

The courts have repeatedly rebuffed the administration, in many cases because the Constitution gives the president no direct power over how elections are run. Courts put on hold two Trump executive orders seeking to change voting procedures. The administration also has lost more than two dozen cases trying to get detailed voter information from the states.

That resembles 2020, when Trump and his allies tried to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and in the process lost dozens of lawsuits.

Can the institutions hold?

Pat McCrory, a former Republican governor of North Carolina, is part of Right Count, a group of conservatives pushing back against election conspiracy theories and intervention in local elections. He said he’s confident the system will hold.

“The only thing that protects us from anarchy is this thin piece of paper called the Constitution,” McCrory said. “That thin piece of paper is, to me, a cement wall.”

It’s one that many analysts expect will continue to stymie Trump in the courts.

“The courts are likely to throw most, if not all, of these charges out,” said Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “But this is a way of intensifying the signal to Trump’s supporters that the elections are rigged.”

The Justice Department in 2020 refused to join Trump’s allies in litigation. In his second term, Trump has pushed out career staff and stocked his administration with people who helped him challenge the 2020 election. That’s led to mounting concern he could deploy immigration agents, the FBI or even the military to the polls or seize ballots or voting machines, although multiple administration officialshave denied they have such plans.

All of that could happen before courts even have a chance to weigh in, said Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist.

“The threat is that he’ll take actions that can’t be undone,” Nyhan said.

Riccardi and Swenson write for the Associated Press.

Dozens of people have been injured in the protests, including students, teachers, and police officers.

Protests have resumed at schools across France as high school students press on with demands for more education funding and better conditions, the day after the country’s prime minister ordered ministers to provide an action plan.

Reporting from Paris, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler said university students and more trade unions have joined the nationwide protests and that a large rally is expected in the capital on Thursday.

“They are moving around, trying to block off the streets,” Butler said from outside one school, where university students were barricading a large area.

“They are out, they say, in solidarity with high school students because they say it’s important that as many young people join in the protests as possible,” she added.

The wave of protests began in a high school in a deprived area of Paris on September 21 . Tens of thousands of students across the country have since marched with a range of demands, from renovated school buildings to fewer classroom hours.

Police response under scrutiny

Rights groups have accused security officials of using disproportionate force against protesters.

Several demonstrators have been injured, including one teenager who lost a hand and another whose jaw was shattered by an exploding stun grenade. They have since been banned at marches.

Police officers and teachers have also been injured, authorities say, accusing students of committing violent acts. At least 6,600 arrests – mostly of minors – have been made so far, according to the Interior Ministry.

Authorities said 375 schools were either fully or partially closed on Thursday, and that two dozen had been burned or destroyed.

The demonstrations are increasing pressure on the cash-strapped outgoing government of Emmanuel Macron ahead of April elections.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu condemned the violence in a TV address on Wednesday. He faulted “political leaders who use this anger to conduct their electoral battles”, after opposition leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called for protesters to keep marching.

Lecornu has ordered ministers to provide an action plan responding to students’ demands by the end of the month, but protesters remain unconvinced.

“As far as they are concerned, the government only talks about solutions but never actually comes up with concrete actions, so they say they are going to keep coming out onto the streets until their demands are met,” Butler said.