Portugal has done what Portugal does best when a national icon steps away from the pitch: it has stopped everything. Cristiano Ronaldo announced his retirement from international football this week, and by lunchtime the country had reached the only sensible conclusion. Flags were lowered. Church bells rang for a full minute, which the bell ringers now admit they did not have permission to do. Lisbon’s tram drivers observed a silence at every stop, and nobody can confirm whether it was for Ronaldo or because the trams were already late.
Politicians reacted in the traditional manner, which is to say they reacted before reading the statement. One minister called the news a loss for the entire Lusophone world and then asked to be photographed beside a bronze bust of him. Parliament held a minute’s silence, then spent forty minutes debating whether it should have held two.
Other athletes did what athletes do: they posted tributes in a font size usually reserved for funerals. One rival striker wrote that Cristiano had always made the impossible look like a Tuesday. A goalkeeper who spent a decade trying to stop him has reportedly asked for a framed copy of his own goal-conceded record, as a keepsake.
Meanwhile, pastry shops across the country report a surge in demand for pastéis de nata, now sold with black ribbons. Nobody is certain what the ribbons signify. The national team, for its part, has a qualifier on Thursday. Nobody has mentioned it.