Trophies, tears, records and rows, Cristiano Ronaldo's international career had it all.
For 23 years he passionately wore the Portugal shirt. The debates about his achievements and legacy representing his country will go on for even longer.
They will primarily focus on two questions. In his pomp, should he have lifted Portugal to greater heights? And in his final years, did he hold the team back from their full potential?
What shouldn't be lost in the analysis - when Ronaldo's record will inevitably be weighed up against that of his great rival (and World Cup winner) Lionel Messi - is that across his unmatched 234 caps, Ronaldo's brilliance helped deliver glory days.
Ronaldo's Portugal era is the most successful era in the country's history.
The Euro 2016 triumph - Portugal's only major tournament win - and the two Nations League titles were moments when he stood in the middle of a nation's celebration, even if injury had forced him to watch the majority of that European Championship final from the sidelines, coaching and cajoling his team-mates with his leg strapped.
The face-off with Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the 2014 World Cup play-off was an epic showdown - and emphatically won by Ronaldo hitting a hat-trick in the second leg to Ibrahimovic's two goals to send Portugal to Russia at Sweden's expense.
"I know Portugal needed me in these matches and I showed that I am here," he said afterwards. And he was almost always there, across six World Cups and six European Championships. Ronaldo matched Pauleta's Portugal scoring record of 47 in 2014 - and then obliterated it, with his final tally at 146.
"I spent my life working to become the best player in the world," Ronaldo said in his international retirement statement. "Today, I realise that my greatest victory was earning the honour of representing the best country in the world."
They are fond words from a man who captained Portugal 172 times. England supporters who remember the 2006 World Cup and Ronaldo's part in the red card for his Manchester United team-mate Wayne Rooney will know how much the national jersey meant to him. The infamous wink underlined where his strongest allegiance lay.
But that meant that Ronaldo, always full of emotion, seemed to feel the blows of international defeat even more emphatically than with his clubs. And, inevitably, across that vast period of time, there were crushing lows.
The image of him breaking down as he exited the 2022 World Cup through the tunnel cruelly captured the pain of falling short on the biggest of stages.
The intensity of focus and pressure on him to deliver in those moments was immense.
"There were also moments when I couldn't give the Portuguese people what they so desperately wanted," he conceded in his statement on Thursday. "Defeats that still hurt to remember."
A shock loss to Greece in the final of Euro 2004 on home soil in his first tournament playing for his country was an early warning it would not be straightforward. Neither was replicating his prolific club scoring form in the crunch moments.
Ronaldo scored just once in four separate World Cups and his first and only World Cup knockout goal didn't come until this summer, a penalty against Croatia. Did that cost a talented Portugal generation more silverware?
Messi was targeted with similar criticism through the majority of his Argentina career. But that narrative was smashed in recent years. The 2022 World Cup win, two Copa America titles, and a run to another World Cup final this year meant Messi's international career finished at the very top.
Ronaldo's finished with him an unused substitute in Norway, after a summer in which it often seemed his presence in the Portugal XI was to the detriment of the team. At the age of 41, Ronaldo was unable to justify the system still being set up to serve him.
Goncalo Ramos scored the winner against Croatia in injury-time, after Ronaldo had been subbed off. He'd also scored a hat-trick in a 6-1 demolition of Switzerland at the previous World Cup, when Ronaldo had fallen out with coach Fernando Santos and been dropped for the last-16 tie.
Ramos was there scoring the winner in Norway, too, as Ronaldo warmed up, bristling about what he would call broken promises and a breach of trust from Portugal boss Jorge Jesus. He left that last camp early and it was an ugly exit.
Ronaldo's subsequent reveal of the eight points he wanted Jesus to make in an apologetic press conference - including reference to himself as "someone of the stature of Pele or Maradona" - reflected the self-confidence, arrogance and self-centred focus which had propelled him to the very top of the game. But also meant he would never slip down into the role of a squad player.
Such is Ronaldo's enormous profile, his very presence at this summer's World Cup seemed essential to the industry. A red-card ban he'd received against the Republic of Ireland was helpfully cancelled by FIFA, allowing Ronaldo to feature from the first whistle in North America. Portugal's exit to Spain in the last-16 was an anti-climax.
Ronaldo has blown the final whistle now, himself. The Portuguese FA, which gave out the mildest of punishments for his September outburst and walkout, have promised a big send-off. Will there be extra-time? Another runout? Don't bet against it.
Whether Portugal do actually go on to thrive as a more cohesive unit without Ronaldo also remains to be seen. But his was an extraordinary international career which will be etched into history, with his individual records in a Portugal shirt towering high.
