Within days of each other, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo both said some version of the same thing: this might be it. Two careers that have defined a generation of football, both edging toward the exit at almost the same moment, for entirely different reasons.
Ronaldo’s admission came first in tone, if not in circumstance. The 41-year-old told Vogue magazine that the current Saudi Pro League season is likely to be his last as a professional, with his contract at Al-Nassr, which he signed back in December 2022, set to expire next June.
“This is probably my last year of football, and I want to leave a spectacular legacy,” Ronaldo said.
It’s a strikingly settled kind of goodbye. Ronaldo, who has scored 976 career goals, married long-time partner Georgina Rodriguez earlier this month, and spoke about the next chapter with the calm of a man who’s already made peace with it.
“I have my future all mapped out,” Ronaldo pointed out. “I have so many things to keep me busy that to tell you just one thing is hard. Because football could leave a big hole, you have to fill your time in various ways, not just one. And also have more fun, travel more, watch and play padel, which I really like, and continue to enjoy what I’ve earned—what we’ve earned. Because after all, it’s been 25 years with a lot of sacrifice.”
Twenty-five years is precisely how long Ronaldo’s been at this. The 2026–27 season marks his 25th as a professional, a career that’s produced five Ballon d’Or awards and five UEFA Champions League titles. It’s also, only now, delivered him a trophy in Saudi Arabia—his 28 league goals last season helped Al-Nassr win the SPL title in May, his first silverware since arriving in Riyadh, and the club’s first league title since 2019.
Even that triumph came with a small absence attached. Ronaldo missed Al-Nassr’s opening game of their title defense after returning from his wedding, watching from the sidelines as the club beat Al-Fateh 3-0. “Cristiano is here today, and he is always present with us,” coach Ange Postecoglou said afterward, adding that recovery was the priority given the tight turnaround before their next fixture—a possible appearance against Al-Diriyah in the King’s Cup on Tuesday.
Messi’s Very Different Kind of Goodbye
Messi’s version of the same sentiment carries none of Ronaldo’s composure, and for good reason. The 39-year-old Argentine, who watched his country fall to Spain in the World Cup 2026 final in New Jersey, returned to Inter Miami afterward to resume his MLS season—only to cut that comeback short following the death of his father, Jorge Messi, at 68.
Jorge wasn’t just Messi’s father. He was his agent too, a constant presence across a career that carried Messi from Barcelona’s youth ranks to the very top of the sport. In a message posted to Instagram on Wednesday, Messi admitted the loss had left him questioning whether he could continue playing at all. “All I ever did was play football, and now I have serious doubts about whether I’ll keep doing it for much longer,” he wrote. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. I don’t know how to carry on.”
The World Cup final itself, it turns out, was shadowed by his father’s declining health the entire time. “I kept telling you we would reach the final so you could make the trip,” Messi wrote. “We made it to the final, but you couldn’t be there. I wanted to win it to bring it to you and show you a new one. I couldn’t, my legs just gave out. This time I tried to push past my physical limits, but I couldn’t. I never felt right.”
Messi revealed one of his reasons for playing that tournament at all was that it had been his father’s wish. “You always asked me to play in the last World Cup and a few days before it started was when you got worse,” he said. “It was the first time you weren’t going to be at a tournament … Every time a match ended, I would wait and hope for your message. That’s when I realised how real the situation was.”
He said goodbye to his father in a private ceremony on Sunday in Perez, near Rosario, attended by close family and a handful of Argentina teammates, before returning to the United States on Tuesday night. Local media reported that Jorge Messi had been battling cancer, though the family did not disclose an official cause of death. Even in his grief, Messi found a way to look forward, pledging to carry his father’s influence into raising his own children “the way you raised me.” He remains under contract with Inter Miami through the end of the 2028 season, though whether he plays out that deal is now, by his own admission, genuinely uncertain.
Two Different Roads, the Same Question
Ronaldo is walking toward retirement with a plan already in place—padel, travel, family, a legacy he intends to cement on his own terms. The other is facing it through grief he never saw coming, still uncertain what comes next.
Different as those paths are, both of football’s defining rivals—Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo—are now, for the first time in either of their careers, openly talking about an ending. Whether either man actually walks away when the season closes remains to be seen. But the fact that both are even having the conversation, within days of one another, says something about just how close football may be to losing both of them at once.
