Cristiano Ronaldo Considered Retiring From Portugal After the World Cup, but Now Wants to Score His 1,000th Career Goal in a Portugal Shirt

• Cristiano Ronaldo has admitted he seriously thought about ending his Portugal career once this year’s World Cup finished, before deciding to carry on into a new season at the age of 41.
• Ronaldo has scored 979 goals across club and country, and he wants his 1,000th to arrive in a Portugal shirt rather than for his club, Al-Nassr.
• Wales boss Craig Bellamy spoke about Ronaldo’s staying power ahead of Thursday’s Nations League meeting between the two countries, joking that he hopes the milestone goal does not come against his own team.

Ronaldo Talked to Portugal’s President Before He Chose to Stay

Cristiano Ronaldo walked into a Lisbon press conference this week and said something he has rarely admitted in nearly a quarter of a century of international football: he thought about walking away.

Asked directly whether he had considered retiring from Portugal duty once the World Cup ended this summer, the 41-year-old did not deflect. “Yes I did,” he said. “Of course, I’m always thinking on my decisions, my future, the present also.” He added: “I’m a thinker. You have to think. This is why you see me here now.”

The thinking did not end in a farewell. It ended in a phone call and a conversation, and then a decision to keep going. “I had a conversation with our president, with our coach,” Ronaldo said. “I still believe that I’m able to help the national team to reach what they want, and will finish when I feel like I’m not doing anything here.”

He was speaking before Portugal’s Nations League meeting with Wales at the Jose Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon on Thursday, September 24, his 234th cap for the national team. Nobody has played more times for a men’s national side. The World Cup he is referencing ended only weeks ago, which makes the timing of his admission notable: this was not old news dressed up for a slow week. It was Ronaldo, fresh from the biggest tournament in the sport, telling the Portuguese press that he had weighed leaving and chosen to stay.

979 Goals, and One Number Left

The reason he gave for staying was not sentimental. It was practical. Ronaldo has scored 979 goals across every club and country he has represented, a tally built over Sporting, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, Al-Nassr and Portugal. He is 21 short of 1,000, and he wants the shirt he is wearing when that goal goes in to say Portugal on the front of it, not Al-Nassr.

“Scoring my 1,000th goal for the national team would be the culmination of something – a beautiful story,” he said. Pressed on whether the number had become an obsession, he pushed back on the word without denying the target. “I’ve already admitted that I want to get there, and I will get there,” he said. “An obsession? No.”

It is a strange kind of arithmetic for a 41-year-old to be doing in public. Most players his age are managing their minutes and hoping for one more contract. Ronaldo is doing the opposite: counting up, out loud, toward a number no outfield player his age has any business chasing, and specifying exactly which national team crest he wants stitched on his chest when he gets there.

He currently has 146 goals for Portugal, the record for any men’s national team in history. Whatever happens with the remaining 21 goals to reach 1,000, that international total already sits alone at the top of the sport.

A Dressing Room That Has Moved On Without Him Leaving

Ronaldo made a point of separating his own tally from what he sees as his real job now. “I can give to the national team my support, not only through the goals, but also outside of football,” he said. Portugal’s squad has changed shape around him in the years after he first pulled on the shirt as a teenager. “This is a new young generation,” he said. “But for me the basic point is to be able on the pitch to score the goals and to help the team win games.”

That dual role, senior scorer and senior mentor at once, is doing a lot of work for a squad that has been rebuilding its midfield and attack around a core of players a generation younger than their captain. Ronaldo is not pretending he is the axis the team turns on any longer. He is arguing he still has a seat at the table, on merit and on goals, rather than on reputation alone.

The Criticism He Says He Still Hears

Not every conversation Ronaldo has about his own longevity is friendly. He used part of the press conference to address the doubters directly, distinguishing between supporters and broadcasters. “I feel the Portuguese fans like me, but I do understand that some TV channels want to criticise me,” he said.

He did not name the channels or the specific criticism, and did not need to. A 41-year-old who has openly discussed retirement, then reversed course to keep chasing a four-figure goal tally, is always going to draw questions about ego, about squad places taken from younger forwards, and about whether the story now serves Portugal or serves Ronaldo. He answered by pointing at the number: 146 international goals, a cap record no other player is within reach of, and a Nations League campaign still to be won.

Wales Would Rather Not Be the Answer

The immediate opponent has its own view of the milestone chase. Wales manager Craig Bellamy, previewing Thursday’s game, was asked about facing a Ronaldo still hunting a thousand career goals. “Seriously? Who gets a thousand goals? We’re not counting youth football or anything,” Bellamy said, before adding a preference of his own: “It’s just silly and I hope he gets it. But I hope he gets nothing against us.”

The line captures something true about where Ronaldo sits in the sport now. Even a rival manager preparing to try to stop him treats the number itself as close to unbelievable, a figure that exists slightly outside the normal scale football uses to measure a career.

What This Means Beyond One Press Conference

Portugal are trying to build a Nations League campaign and, further out, a route to another major tournament with a squad that increasingly features players born after Ronaldo’s senior debut. Every camp he attends now carries two questions at once: what he still offers the team on the pitch, and how long the federation can keep building its plans around a player who has openly said he is measuring his own future in personal milestones as much as in team ones.

His answer this week was that those two things are not in conflict yet. He is not asking for a testimonial appearance or a ceremonial farewell tour. He is asking to keep scoring, keep being picked on form, and finish his goal count wearing the shirt he has worn from his teenage years rather than the one he is paid to wear at club level in Saudi Arabia. Whether Portugal’s coaching staff and support base agree that those two ambitions are compatible with team performance in a Nations League and World Cup qualifying cycle beyond this one is the harder question sitting underneath the press conference answers.

Still Counting

For now, Ronaldo has given his own answer to the retirement question, and it is not the one some expected after a World Cup where his role was smaller than it was a decade ago. He is staying, he has told Portugal’s president and coach as much directly, and he has set out precisely how he would like his story to end: with a shirt, a number, and a stadium in Portuguese colours behind him when it happens.

Twenty-one goals stand between him and the number he wants. Whether he gets there against Wales, against a Nations League rival, or years from now, he has made clear which team he wants to be playing for when he does.