Lisbon’s national-team camp has become the latest stage for Jorge Jesus’s combustible authority, with Cristiano Ronaldo leaving Portugal’s base on Wednesday after a clear disagreement with the 71-year-old coach. It is the most significant public rupture of Jesus’s long managerial career, one previously marked by confrontations that were often loud but usually contained.
Key takeaways
- Cristiano Ronaldo departed Portugal’s training camp following a dispute with Jorge Jesus.
- Jesus once described Óscar Cardozo as his hardest public man-management case after Benfica’s 2013 Portuguese Cup final defeat.
- Neymar left Al-Hilal after Jesus excluded him from the Saudi Pro League squad in early 2025.
- At Sporting, Jesus dismissed Islam Slimani’s objections to being substituted during a 5-1 win over Arouca in March 2015.
- A dressing-room split involving Pizzi after Benfica’s 3-0 loss to Porto contributed to Jesus leaving the club in 2022.
From Lisbon to Riyadh, flashpoints have followed Jesus
The dispute with Ronaldo has brought fresh attention to several moments when Jesus’s demanding style has collided with prominent players. During his time at Benfica, the most memorable early episode came after the 2013 Taça de Portugal final against Vitória de Guimarães.
Benfica led 1-0 when Jesus removed Paraguayan forward Óscar Cardozo for Urreta in the 70th minute. Vitória equalised nine minutes later and completed the turnaround two minutes after that. Once the match ended, Cardozo became involved in an argument, pushed Jesus’s left arm and confronted him at close range.
Speaking in 2015 after being named GQ Portugal’s Man of the Year, Jesus said the Cardozo incident had been the most difficult case he had faced in public. He argued that the striker was fundamentally a good young man whose reaction came during an emotionally unbalanced moment, with Benfica having lost two finals in the same week. Jesus added that his response would have been very different had such an incident taken place on the training ground.
His later work in Saudi Arabia brought another high-profile disagreement. At the start of 2025, Jesus decided Neymar should not be registered for the Saudi Pro League season, believing the Brazilian did not have the physical condition to withstand the campaign. The plan was to use him in the AFC Champions League, where foreign-player registration posed no such obstacle.
Neymar rejected that arrangement and asked to leave Al-Hilal, subsequently returning to Santos. He later gave several interviews making clear his disappointment with Jesus. The coach had publicly said Neymar’s quality was beyond debate, but pointed to a serious injury absence followed by another setback as evidence that the forward had been unable to keep pace physically with the squad.
When Jesus was presented as Portugal coach on 10 June, his recollection of a conversation with Neymar spread widely. He said he had coached two of the world’s three best players—Neymar and Ronaldo—and still lacked only Lionel Messi. Recalling his message to Neymar, he used the English phrase, “You finish,” before insisting that his decision would always be based on what he believed was right for the club or national side.
A manager who has rarely softened the message
Jesus’s approach was equally direct at Sporting in March 2015. After a 5-1 Portuguese league victory over Arouca, Algeria striker Islam Slimani reacted angrily when he was taken off 15 minutes into the second half. Slimani was pursuing the league’s top-scorer prize, but Jesus made plain that the forward’s opinion did not carry weight against the coach’s authority.
Jesus said Slimani would comply with his choices whether he liked them or not, even joking that he would buy the player Kompensan, a medicine for heartburn, if the substitution left him with “azia”.
At Al-Hilal in October 2023, former Flamengo winger Michael also triggered an on-field confrontation. During a 1-0 victory over Al-Khaleej, Michael was substituted in the final minute and threw a full water bottle onto the pitch. Jesus moved towards the player to challenge him before assistant João de Deus held the coach back. The exchange did not develop beyond a brief argument.
The most consequential internal conflict came during Jesus’s second Benfica spell. Following a 3-0 defeat to Porto in 2022, midfielder Pizzi, a major figure at the club, criticised the team’s performance as disastrous. Marcos Braz and Bruno Spindel, then leading Flamengo’s football department and pursuing a return for Jesus, were in the stadium.
Jesus reacted by removing Pizzi from the group in front of the squad. The players backed the midfielder and refused to train, creating a crisis that prompted Benfica’s board to end the coach’s tenure. Ronaldo’s exit from Portugal’s camp now places Jesus in another difficult chapter—this time with the country’s most recognisable footballer at the centre of it.
