Ronaldo thought about retiring after the World Cup, and 21 goals are half the reason he stayed
Cristiano Ronaldo is 21 goals short of 1,000 at 41, and his scoring rate says he gets there this season. Whether Portugal are better for it is a harder question.
Sep 24, 2026
He admitted it in Lisbon on Wednesday. Asked whether he had thought about retiring from international football after Portugal went out of the World Cup, Ronaldo said: “Yes, I did.” Then he said he was staying, and gave two reasons. One was Portugal. The other was a number.
“One thousand goals, yes, and the national team,” he said. “Winning the Nations League, the competition starts tomorrow, it’s a new age.”
Tomorrow is tonight. Portugal open their Nations League campaign against Wales in Lisbon on Thursday, 24 September, at 7.45pm UK time, which is 12.15am on Friday in India. If he plays, it will be his 234th cap. He made his debut in 2003.
Twenty-one to go
Ronaldo is on 979 career goals. The last one was a first-half header against Abha earlier this month, in a 2-1 Al-Nassr win. He played the full game and was named man of the match.
The pace is worth doing the sums on. His 900th came against Croatia on 5 September 2024. Just over two years later he was on 979. That is 79 goals in two years, roughly 40 a year, in his late thirties and early forties. At that rate, 21 more takes about six months. Even at three-quarters of that rate, it takes eight or nine.
That is why I think he gets there, and probably sooner than most people expect. Al-Nassr keep picking him, and Portugal have just given him a Nations League campaign to go at. We have gone through where every one of his goals has come from, and there is no sign that the supply is drying up.
The harder question is Portugal
The number is the easy part. What is harder to say is whether Portugal are better with him in the side.
The World Cup gave both answers. He scored twice in the 5-0 win over Uzbekistan, which made him the first man to score at six World Cups and took him to ten goals at the tournament. Then Portugal lost 1-0 to Spain in the last 16, to a Mikel Merino goal in the 91st minute, and he said that was his last World Cup match.
Jorge Jesus has named him in a 25-man squad that also has Joao Neves, Nuno Mendes, Renato Veiga, Francisco Conceicao and Fabio Silva in it. Most of that squad could still be around in 2030. Ronaldo would be 45. Jesus called him a “symbol of Portugal and the national team”, and a symbol still takes a starting place away from a younger striker.
Ronaldo’s own words point the other way. “It doesn’t matter if I play tomorrow, if I rest the next game,” he said. “For me, the most important thing is that I feel good.” If he means that, and Jesus rotates him rather than starting him every time, it could suit both of them. He has won the Nations League twice already, and he said a third is as much the point as the goals.
He also joked that he would retire “in 10 years”. Nobody believes that. But 21 goals is not ten years of work. It is a few months, and the first chance comes tonight against Wales.