Cristiano Ronaldo Sets Timeline for Retirement Amid Talk of European Return

Ronaldo has previously spoken about the varied plans he has for a post-playing career.

Cristiano Ronaldo will turn 41 in February. / Waleed Zein/Anadolu/Getty Images

Cristiano Ronaldo pledged that would not retire until scoring the 1,000th goal of his professional career, insisting that he “wants to keep going” wherever that feverish desire may take him.

The unrelenting goalscorer has found the net 956 times for club and country. Despite turning 41 this coming February, the rate of Ronaldo’s output remains dizzying: 2025 proved to be the 14th calendar year of his career which brought a return of at least 40 goals.

Should Ronaldo match that milestone once again in 2026—which will be divided up by his record-breaking sixth World Cup—that four-digit feat will be within his grasp.

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“It’s hard to continue playing, but I am motivated,” Ronaldo declared while accepting the 2025 Globe Soccer Award for the Best Middle East Player this weekend. “My passion is high and I want to continue. It doesn’t matter where I play, whether in the Middle East or Europe. I always enjoy playing football and I want to keep going.

“You know what my goal is. I want to win trophies and I want to reach that number [1,000 goals] that you all know. I will reach the number for sure, if no injuries.”

On X, Ronaldo felt compelled to add: “A special moment to end the year on. I carry on with the same passion, commitment and hunger as always to reach my goals. Thank you to everyone who has supported me this year!”

Ronaldo’s contract at Al Nassr does not expire until the summer of 2027, by which point he will be 42 and could very well be in possession of an unprecedented tally of goals.

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Has Any Player Ever Scored 1,000 Goals?

Pele is one of the best soccer players ever. / Getty/Alessandro Sabbatini

Ronaldo is not the first player to chase 1,000 goals. The legendary Brazilian forward Pelé famously celebrate a millennium of net ruffling back in 1969, although he didn’t always seem so keen to hit that figure.

After converting a penalty against the unfashionable Botafogo da Paraiba to bring his tally up to 999, Pelé was forced to go in goal after Santos’s goalkeeper was struck down by a mysterious illness. The 20,000 fans clustered into the remote north-eastern city of João Pessoa felt robbed of a moment of history, with many believing that Pelé had saved his moment of history for Santos’s upcoming clash with Vasco da Gama in Rio de Janeiro.

The three-time World Cup winner would duly score against Vasco five days later to celebrate what was, at the time, widely lauded as his 1,000th goal. However, it was subsequently discovered that a strike by Pelé for the Brazilian military team against Paraguay in 1959 had been left off the records, ensuring that his landmark goal had in fact come in João Pessoa against Botafogo.

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Yet, debate over Pelé’s official tally would not end there.

As Diego Maradona joked with his long-term rival on his own chat show after both had retired: “Who did you score them against, your nephews in the back yard?”

Santos played a mountain of friendlies to cash in on Pelé’s fame, rendering many of his goals unofficial by modern estimations. The esteemed soccer statistics outlet IFFHS judge that the man nicknamed ‘The King’ only racked up 762 legitimate goals. Even with this retroactively imposed limitations, still just Lionel Messi (896) and Ronaldo himself can top the Brazilian icon.

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All Time Top Scorers in Soccer History

Player	Nation	Goals
1. Cristiano Ronaldo	Portugal	956
2. Lionel Messi	Argentina	896
3. Pelé	Brazil	762
4. Romário	Brazil	756
5. Ferenc Puskás	Hungary/Spain	725
6. Josef Bican	Austria/Czechoslovakia/Bohemia and Moravia	722
7. Robert Lewandowski	Poland	685
8. Jimmy Jones	Northern Ireland	639
9. Gerd Müller	West Germany	634
10. Joe Bambrick	Northern Ireland	626

Stats via IFFHS.

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Ronaldo’s Post-Retirement Plans

One step at a time 👍🏼 pic.twitter.com/E2DugRfueE

— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) December 17, 2025

What next after 1,000th? For Pelé—going by his own statistics—he was to amass another 289 goals before hanging up his boots in 1977 and embarking upon an itinerant post-playing career which took him to everywhere from Hollywood to the Brazilian government.

The legendary figure also lent his appearance to a range of products in a widespread advertising campaign which Ronaldo has long since undertaken. “It will be very, very difficult but I’ve prepared my future since [I was] 25, 26, 27 years old,” Ronaldo said of his retirement plans when in discussion with Piers Morgan earlier this year. “So I think I will be capable to support that pressure.

“Nothing will compare to the adrenaline we have for football to score a goal. But I have other passions. [When I retire] I’m going to have more time for me, have more time for my family, to raise my kids. I want to be more a family person, more present. Also, to have my own hobbies. I like to see UFC, the fights. I like padel. I like and I want to learn more about my companies.

“I’ll never be a [full-time] YouTuber, of course, but I want to be there. I’m going to spend more time on that to learn. I think I’m going to do funny things and things I’m not used to doing before. Because I live football 24 hours [each day] to do the right things and perform.”

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