By 2016, Cristiano Ronaldo had already won three Ballon d'Or awards and was widely considered, alongside Lionel Messi, one of the two best footballers alive. He had almost nothing to show for it with Portugal. Twelve years earlier, an 19-year-old Ronaldo had cried on the Lisbon turf after losing a European Championship final his country was favored to win, at home, as hosts. What followed was over a decade of near-misses, a group stage humiliation, and finally, in France, a tournament Portugal barely won outright — finishing the group stage with three draws — that somehow ended with them as champions of Europe.
Euro, home — lost the final
World Cup
Euro — lost on penalties
World Cup — group stage exit
Euro, in France
World Cup, round of 16
World Cup — Ronaldo benched
Nations League — won on penalties
2004: Home Heartbreak
Portugal hosted Euro 2004 with one of the most talented squads in their history, and were favorites to win it on home soil. Their opponent in the final was Greece — a team that had entered the tournament at 150-1 odds and had already beaten Portugal in the tournament's opening match. In the final, at Estadio da Luz in Lisbon, Greece won again, 1-0, through an Angelos Charisteas header. It remains one of the greatest upsets in the tournament's history — a story we've told in more detail from Greece's side. For Portugal, and for a 19-year-old Ronaldo playing his first major tournament, it was a devastating way to lose a final at home.
The Wilderness Years (2006–2012)
Portugal reached the semifinal of the 2006 World Cup, losing 1-0 to France on a Zinedine Zidane penalty, then lost the third-place match to Germany. Six years later, at Euro 2012, they reached the semifinal again, this time against Spain. The match finished 0-0 after 120 minutes and went to a penalty shootout — and in one of the strangest moments in the team's history, Ronaldo never got to take a kick. He was scheduled fifth in Portugal's shooting order, but Portugal missed their second and fourth penalties before it was his turn, and Spain had already won 4-2 by the time the shootout reached him. Portugal's captain and best player stood and watched the tournament end without ever stepping up to the spot.
2014: Rock Bottom
The low point came at the 2014 World Cup. Portugal opened against Germany and were dismantled 4-0, with defender Pepe sent off before halftime. They never recovered, finishing bottom of their group and going out in the first round — a humiliating result for a team built around the best player in the world at the time.
2016: The Unlikeliest Champions
Nothing about Euro 2016 suggested a Portuguese triumph was coming. They drew all three group matches — 1-1 with Iceland, 0-0 with Austria, 3-3 with Hungary — and scraped through only as one of the best third-placed teams in the newly expanded 24-team format. They needed extra time to beat Croatia in the round of 16, and penalties to get past Poland in the quarterfinal, before finally winning in normal time against Wales in the semifinal.
The final, against hosts France in Paris, produced the tournament's defining image. Ronaldo was in tears and being helped off the pitch on a stretcher in the 25th minute, his night over with a knee injury. Rather than leave, he spent the rest of the match on the touchline in a bib, animatedly coaching and encouraging his teammates like an auxiliary member of the coaching staff. The match went scoreless through 90 minutes and deep into extra time, until substitute Eder — a striker with only two goals for his club all season — met the ball and drove a left-footed shot past Hugo Lloris in the 109th minute. Portugal won 1-0. Twelve years after losing a final at home, they were champions of Europe, having won only one match all tournament inside 90 minutes.
After the Trophy: The Nations League Era
Portugal added to their collection in the newly created UEFA Nations League, beating the Netherlands 1-0 as hosts in the inaugural 2019 final. They won it again in 2025, beating rivals Spain 2-2 (5-3 on penalties) in Munich — Ronaldo, at 40, scored Portugal's second equalizer before being substituted, then sobbed on the sideline as Ruben Neves converted the winning penalty. It made Portugal the first nation to win the Nations League twice. The Nations League doesn't carry the weight of a World Cup or European Championship, and isn't counted as a major trophy on this site — but as a marker of Portugal's remarkable consistency across two decades, it's hard to ignore.
The Never-Ending World Cup Quest
The one trophy that has eluded Portugal entirely is the World Cup. They lost in the 2018 round of 16 to Uruguay, undone by a Edinson Cavani brace. In 2022, with Ronaldo aging and out of form, manager Fernando Santos made the startling decision to drop him to the bench for the round of 16 against Switzerland — Portugal responded with a 6-1 win, Goncalo Ramos scoring a hat-trick in his first World Cup start. The bold move backfired in the quarterfinal, where Portugal lost 1-0 to Morocco, who became the first African nation to reach a World Cup semifinal. Whether Ronaldo, now well into his 40s, gets another realistic shot at the one trophy still missing from his career remains one of the more poignant open questions in the sport.
Closing: One Trophy, One Unforgettable Story
Portugal's honors list reads simply: one major trophy, won in 2016, in a tournament they were never really supposed to win. But the story around that single line is one of the richest in modern football — a home final lost in tears in 2004, a captain who never got to take a penalty in 2012, a group-stage humiliation in 2014, and finally, in 2016, an injured captain coaching his team to the trophy from the touchline. For a country and a player defined for so long by brilliance without reward, that image — Ronaldo in a bib, shouting instructions, unable to play but unwilling to stop leading — has become the enduring symbol of how Portugal finally won.
Road to Euro 2016: Three Draws, Then a Final
See Portugal's full trophy history, live counter, and every major final on one page.
View Portugal's Trophy Drought →Published 2026-08-01