Cristiano Ronaldo was overtaken with emotion at the final whistle of Portugal's 1-0 loss to Morocco in the World Cup quarterfinal on Saturday and walked straight down the tunnel to the safety of the locker room.
He declined to stay on the field to console his teammates or even applaud Morocco for being the first African country to advance to the World Cup's last four.
Instead, as a tournament official clapped him on the back, he walked through the tunnel while holding his face and crying a little.
So what happens next for Ronaldo?
He will turn 38 in February and is aware that this is his last opportunity to win the World Cup. He must also have known that a day previously, his fierce rival Lionel Messi had advanced to the semifinals.
We can be certain that he won't be visiting Old Trafford again. He was a Manchester United player when he first arrived in Qatar, but he now has no club.
He didn't even need to clean out his locker before leaving for the World Cup, so he won't even be going back to Manchester to accomplish that. He never anticipated returning.
He had given an interview to Piers Morgan the week before the World Cup, in which he stated that he did not respect United manager Erik ten Hag and felt betrayed by the team. This was his attempt to get out of his contract, and he succeeded in his goal.
As club football prepares to return after the World Cup, Ronaldo must now find a new venue to display his waning abilities in his final years of competition.
After initially stating his desire to leave United and join a team in the Champions League during the summer, none offered to sign him.
Since then, both for United in the Premier League, where he has scored just once this season, and Portugal in the World Cup, where he has failed to score from open play in five games in Qatar, Ronaldo has shown a noticeable dip in performance. When he doesn't get his way, he has additionally shown to be a disruptive presence.
For any clubs that may have harbored some interest in signing Ronaldo, it is hardly the most alluring offer. He now poses a significant risk.
Al Halal of Saudi Arabia, who reportedly offered him a two-year contract worth about £305 million last summer, is the only team to have made an offer for Ronaldo in the past six months.
Ronaldo acknowledged the offer in his interview with Morgan from earlier this month. He said, "It's true, sure it's true," before going on to explain why he declined so much money. It is very difficult. However, I also believed that I was still capable of scoring goals and that I was extremely glad to be here at United.
Despite being given these enormous sums of money, Ronaldo was unwilling to transfer to Saudi Arabia, where the Pro League is developing but is now ranked 20th in the world, behind the Scottish Premiership and the English Championship.
Ronaldo was not ready to drop that drastically, having excelled in the Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A for the past 20 years, the top three leagues in the world.
It was claimed on Monday of last week that Ronaldo had received a fresh offer from Saudi Arabia, this time from Al Nasser, who were willing to give him a two-and-a-half-year deal worth up to £400 million. Ronaldo countered, "No, it's not true."
Ronaldo left Manchester United because of his ego and his conviction that he can continue to play in one of Europe's top leagues; now he needs to find a place that will allow him to achieve that. In a perfect world, he would also like to participate in the Champions League once more and add to his total of 140 goals scored there.
But few teams are willing to sign a highly paid striker who will soon turn 38 and has only scored one league goal this year.
When its new owner Todd Bodily even spoke with Ronaldo's agent Jorge Mendes last summer, Chelsea demonstrated some interest. Although his then-manager Thomas Tuchel disagreed, they turned away from what he believed would be the player's ultimate statement signing. They are unlikely to be tempted to return right now.
Nepali briefly expressed interest in Ronaldo as well last summer, but they have since climbed to the top of the Serie A standings, where they lead AC Milan by 8 points, and they would not want to do anything to undermine that like sign Ronaldo.
Although Ronaldo could have enjoyed returning to Sporting Lisbon, his first professional club, they could not afford him. Ruben Amorim, the manager of the team, stated in October that "Everyone at Sporting dreams of Cristiano's return, but we don't have the money to pay his salaries." Ronaldo may still pull it off, though, if he lowered his salary expectations to a level that would allow him to come back.
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