Cristiano Ronaldo considered retiring after the World Cup but says he opted to extend his glittering career as he believes he can help Portugal to further success – and reach a personal milestone of 1,000 career goals.<\/p>\n
The 41-year-old confirmed in the summer that the 2026 World Cup would be his last, although his long-term future remained uncertain.<\/p>\n
However, he has been included in Jorge Jesus’ 25-man squad for Portugal’s Nations League campaign, which begins against Wales in Lisbon on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
In the lead-up to the contest with Craig Bellamy’s side, the Al-Nassr forward also targeted the 21 goals needed to reach that magical 1,000 mark.<\/p>\n
Asked if he thought about retiring from international duty after the World Cup, Ronaldo responded: “Yes, I did.<\/p>\n
“Of course, I’m always thinking on my decisions, my future, the present also. I’m a thinker, you have to think.”<\/p>\n
The former Sporting, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus player said: “I had a conversation with our president, with our coach. I still believe that I’m able to help the national team to reach what they want.<\/p>\n
“I think I can give to the national team my support, not only through the goals, but also outside of football.”<\/p>\n
Ronaldo is a two-time Nations League winner with Portugal, and he said adding a third title was also an aim alongside his personal ambitions.<\/p>\n
“Both aims are important,” he said.<\/p>\n
“One thousand goals, yes, and the national team. Winning the Nations League, the competition starts tomorrow [Thursday], it’s a new age.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cristiano Ronaldo considered retiring after the World Cup but says he opted to extend his glittering career as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-780364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}