Cristiano Ronaldo's quiet international break continued on Thursday as he trained with a reduced Juventus team at their Turin headquarters under the watchful eye of Massimiliano Allegri.
The 33-year-old, who is still sporting a black eye after taking a painful blow to his face during last weekend's 2-1 win at Parma, chose not to play for Portugal this week in order to continue adapting to his new club.
Ronaldo has yet to score for Juventus following a £100million summer move from Real Madrid and is already starting to feel the pressure regardless of the fact that they have maintained a 100 per cent start to their Serie A title defence.
Attempting to rediscover his touch in front of goal, Ronaldo competed in a game in which the objective was to head a football into a white bin. It was an evidently more difficult task than it sounded with Mario Mandzukic falling in his failed attempts.
It was certainly a more relaxed affair than the Portugal training camp as they geared up for two heavyweight clashes against World Cup runners-up Croatia and a new-look Italy.
Portugal welcome Croatia for a friendly on Thursday night before facing Italy in their first UEFA Nations League match on Monday. Their chances of winning both matches were severely affected by Ronaldo's decision to skip them, but head coach Fernando Sanches did not begrudge his star player the chance to rest.
He said: 'After talking to the player, and after he moved to Juventus with all the processes of adaptation that entails, we understand it was best for him to not be present for these games.'
It is another reminder that Ronaldo, who will be 34 in February, is having to manage his body in the twilight of a remarkable career. Similarly, the forward had to miss La Liga matches for Real Madrid last season in order to be at his best in the Champions League.
Allegri and Ronaldo are likely to work together and employ the same management programme at Juventus.
Ronaldo will not be considering international retirement yet, however, with his quest to become the first European player to reach 100 international goals in sight. He is just 15 short of the remarkable achievement (85 goals in 154 caps) and needs 24 to beat the world record posted by Iran legend Ali Daei between 1993 and 2006.
