"Proud to be the most capped player"

Cristiano Ronaldo said he was "proud" after his new record in Thursday's match between Portugal and Liechtenstein, in which he became the player with the most caps for a national team.

In a post shared on his Instagram profile, Ronaldo described the "great feelings" he experienced during the match, in which he scored a record-breaking brace in Portugal's 4-0 win. "Proud to be the most capped player," the Portuguese star wrote in the post, which has accumulated more than 8 million likes. With Thursday's match, 38-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo took his tally for his country's senior side to 197 appearances, surpassing the 196 of Kuwait's Bader Al Mutawa.

The clash against the Principality also marked the return of the former Real Madrid player to the Portuguese national team after his tears at the end of the quarter-final at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where Portugal were eliminated by Morocco.

As he revealed this week, he considered his future in the national team, and his continuity was one of the big question marks at the start of new coach Roberto Martinez's tenure.

"It feels so good to be back playing and scoring for our national team. In a stadium, moreover, that is special to me," he said. The match was played at Lisbon's Alvalade Stadium, home of his boyhood club Sporting de Portugal, and his display in the home opener against Manchester United convinced the English club to sign him.

 

March 23, 2023