Cristiano Ronaldo Considers Retirement After 25-Year Career

Cristiano Ronaldo is finally talking about the finish line.

After a career that has stretched across a quarter of a century, the 41-year-old has suggested this season could be his last as a professional, drawing a line under one of football’s most relentless journeys.

“This is probably my last year of football, and I want to leave a spectacular legacy,” he told Vogue, speaking shortly after marrying Georgina Rodríguez on Tuesday. The words landed with the weight of everything that has come before them: five Ballon d’Or awards, a mountain of trophies, and a catalogue of records that reshaped modern football.

Ronaldo has never hidden his obsession with numbers, with targets, with the next summit. Now, he sounds like a man ready to step away from the grind. He spoke of looking forward to “spending more time with the family,” saying his future is “all mapped out.”

“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 the space left by 25 years of single‑minded sacrifice. He talked about wanting to travel more, to “watch and play padel,” a sport he has grown to love, and to enjoy the fruits of a career that has defined a generation.

“Continue to enjoy what I’ve earned – what we’ve earned,” he added. “Because, after all, it’s been 25 years with a lot of sacrifice.”

Chasing 1,000

Even as he talks about life after football, one final target still hangs in the air.

Ronaldo scored at his sixth World Cup for Portugal this summer, becoming the first player to find the net at six editions of the tournament. The stage was familiar; the version of him less so. He no longer dominates matches as he once did, no longer bends entire competitions to his will, but the goals keep coming.

He stands on 976 goals for club and country, a scarcely believable figure built across spells with Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and now Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia. For years, he has spoken about reaching 1,000. That number has lived in his mind as clearly as any trophy.

The Saudi Pro League offers him the platform and the minutes to chase it. Ronaldo has one year left on his contract with Al-Nassr, one more campaign to close a 24-goal gap and hit the landmark he has long coveted.

If this truly is his final season, the equation is simple: one last push, one last race against time, one last number to etch into the record books.

Then, for the first time since he was a teenager, Cristiano Ronaldo will have to decide who he is without a goal to chase every three days.