‘Spectacular Legacy’—Cristiano Ronaldo Gives Clearest Indication Yet of Retirement Plans

Cristiano Ronaldo has strongly hinted that the 2026–27 season will be the last of his career, the end of which will mark a quarter of a century since debuting for Sporting CP at 17 years old.

Ronaldo turns 42 in February and has a contract until June with Al Nassr, who start the new Saudi Pro League campaign on Saturday as reigning champions by beating Al Fateh without the five-time Ballon d’Or winner. He has only just returned from a summer break that included his marriage to long-term partner Georgina Rodríguez in a small ceremony in Portugal.

Finally getting hitched a decade after first meeting at a Gucci store in Madrid was tribute to 10 years as a couple more than anything else. Georgina told Vogue in an interview recorded five days before the intimate ceremony—held in their new summer house in the wealthy town of Cascais near Lisbon—that the “big wedding with family and friends” will follow “in the future.”

Only four witnesses—none of Ronaldo’s family—and the five children were in attendance. She said it has been a “crazy year” filled with “work commitments, competitions, kids.”

But Ronaldo will have much more time on his hands relatively soon.

In the joint, lengthy interview, he offered: “This is probably my last year of football, and I want to leave a spectacular legacy.”