Messi also gave up 1,000 goals, Ronaldo can do it "960th goal → 40 goals left"... The secret is, "My body is 28 years old."

*This content was translated by AI.

Cristiano Ronaldo (41, Al Nasr) scored his 960th career goal. There are only 40 goals left until the 1,000 "unprofessional" goals in the soccer world, which even rival Lionel Messi (39, Inter Miami) could not make.

Al-Nasr won 2-1 in the 16th round of the "2025-2026 Saudi Professional League" against Damak FC at Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Stadium in Abha, Saudi Arabia on the 22nd (Korea time).

Al-Nasr, who won two consecutive games after three consecutive league defeats, narrowed the gap between first place Al-Hilal (41 points), one game earlier, to four, with 37 points (12 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses).

Ronaldo started as a front-line two-top striker in the 4-4-2 formation, paired with Joao Felix, his junior from the Portuguese national team.

Ronaldo's winning goal was scored in the fifth minute of the second half with a 1-0 lead. Felix stabbed a forward pass toward Ronaldo heading forward, and Ronaldo shot right away and cut the net. The defender tackled, but Ronaldo's shooting beat was faster. Ronaldo ran to the stands and performed a "heavy rain ceremony."

As a result, Ronaldo has scored his 960th career goal (817 professional teams and 143 A-match goals). Ronaldo has 40 goals left until his goal of 1,000 goals.

Currently, 41-year-old Ronaldo is still performing at his best as a soccer player, even though he is past his twilight years. He scored 35 goals (50 official goals) in the 2023-2024 season, the most in Saudi league history, and became the league's top scorer for two consecutive years with 34 goals and four assists in official games last season. This season, he has continued his phenomenal performance with 16 goals and 3 assists in 20 official games.

Ronaldo vowed to score 1,000 goals in his acceptance speech after receiving the Middle East's Most Valuable Player Award at the "2025 Globe Soccer Awards" in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last month.

He said, "I'll know what my goal is. "I want to lift the trophy and score 1,000 goals," he said. "If I don't get injured, I will be able to achieve my goal of 1,000 goals." Regarding the retirement period, he said, "It's hard to keep running. But there is motivation. There is still a lot of passion for soccer. So I want to keep running. It doesn't matter whether it's the Middle East or Europe," he said.

As such, retirement seems to be a long way off for Ronaldo. Ronaldo, who re-signed Al Nasr for two years in June, is scheduled to play in Saudi Arabia until June 2027.

Ronaldo also expects his retirement to be around three years from now. According to the UK's Daily Mail, a wearable device company recently analyzed Ronaldo's physical age in May, and he was surprisingly 28.9 years old. It came out more than 10 years lower than the actual age.

According to the British 'Bissaker', Ronaldo said, "I want to enjoy soccer as long as possible. Of course, you can't continue playing soccer regardless of your age. But if you look at yourself, you know that you can still show good performance for the next two to three years," he said.

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*This content was translated by AI.