Cristiano Ronaldo Reflects on His Last Season in Football
Cristiano Ronaldo has started to talk about the end.
After two and a half decades spent rewriting football’s record books, the 41-year-old has admitted this season could be his last as a professional.
“This is probably my last year of football, and I want to leave a spectacular legacy,” he told Vogue, speaking shortly after marrying long-time partner Georgina Rodríguez on Tuesday. It was a rare public acknowledgement that even his extraordinary career has an expiry date.
Ronaldo, a five-time Ballon d’Or winner and serial champion with Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, is widely regarded as one of the greatest to play the game. The numbers back it up. The trophies do too. So does the relentlessness that has driven him since his teenage years in Lisbon.
Now, though, his priorities are shifting.
He spoke openly about “looking forward to spending more time with the family,” explaining that life after football is already planned. “I have so many things to keep me busy that to tell you just one thing is hard,” he said. “Because football could leave a big hole, you have to fill your time in various ways, not just one.”
That “hole” is 25 years wide. Twenty-five years of training grounds, hotel rooms, flights, finals, and the kind of sacrifice he referenced with a mixture of pride and relief. “And also have more fun, travel more, watch and play padel, which I really like, and continue to enjoy what I’ve earned – what we’ve earned. Because, after all, it’s been 25 years with a lot of sacrifice.”
The words carried the weight of a man who knows he is closer to the finish line than the start, even if the competitive fire still burns.
Chasing 1,000
There is, though, one last towering target in front of him.
Ronaldo has scored 976 goals for club and country, an astonishing total accumulated across spells at some of the biggest clubs in the sport and through countless reinventions of his game. This summer, he played in – and scored at – his sixth World Cup for Portugal, an all-time record that underlined both his longevity and his obsession with the biggest stages.
He is no longer the explosive force who once terrorised defences in England and Spain. The step has slowed. The body has absorbed too many miles. But the goal remains: 1,000 career strikes.
That long-stated ambition is still within reach. Playing in Saudi Arabia with Al-Nassr, where he has one year left on his contract, Ronaldo has the platform and the minutes to chase down the landmark. The Saudi Pro League may not be Europe’s elite, but it offers him what he craves most at this stage: games, goals, and the chance to keep adding to his legacy.
One more year, one more mountain. Then, if his own words hold, the curtain comes down on one of football’s most relentless careers.
