Key Points
- Ronaldo told Vogue his current Al-Nassr contract is probably his final year in football.
- Messi, after his father Jorge's death this month, said he is unsure he will continue playing.
- Their exits would end a rivalry that has framed football's biggest debate since 2008.
The latest:
Cristiano Ronaldo said he expects the coming season to be his last as a professional, telling Vogue he wants to leave a spectacular legacy and has his post-football plans mapped out. The admission landed in the same week Lionel Messi, mourning his father Jorge, questioned publicly whether he would keep playing. Ronaldo is 41, Messi 39; both featured at this summer’s World Cup.
Details:
- Ronaldo’s words: In the Vogue interview, conducted around talk of his home wedding, Ronaldo said this is probably his last year of football, adding that he has so many things to keep him busy that naming just one is hard, and that football could leave a big hole he intends to fill in several ways rather than one.
- Messi’s uncertainty: Messi’s Inter Miami contract runs to 2028, but his father Jorge’s death this month has clouded his future. In a social media tribute he wrote that he does not know how to carry on, and said that he used to just play football and is now unsure he will keep doing it for much longer.
- Jorge Messi’s role: Jorge Messi oversaw his son’s career from the start and brokered the trial that took him to Barcelona. Losing that connection, the report argues, makes the reasons for continuing harder to find.
- The World Cup exits: Messi scored 8 goals and added 4 assists at this summer’s tournament. Portugal went out in the last 16 to Spain, after which Ronaldo, speaking in the third person, said he had given his best, won three titles for Portugal, rated the 2016 triumph his biggest, and was leaving with a clear conscience.
- The rivalry’s numbers: The two first met in a 2008 Champions League semi-final and played 36 competitive matches against each other across 15 years, sharing almost 3,000 minutes on the pitch. They turned El Clasico into a global event between 2009 and 2018 and split the Ballon d’Or for 10 unbroken years.
- The record ledger: Ronaldo has almost 1,000 career goals and holds the records for most international appearances and goals. Messi has 8 Ballons d’Or, a record 91 goals in a calendar year and the most European Golden Boots; his most recent Ballon d’Or came in 2023 as an Inter Miami player.
- Where they finished: Neither chose a homecoming: no return to Barcelona or Newell’s Old Boys for Messi, no final year at Sporting CP or Nacional for Ronaldo. Messi joined Qatari-owned PSG in 2021 before moving to MLS; Ronaldo’s switch to Al-Nassr opened Saudi Arabia’s push to become a football superpower.
- The sportswashing charge: Ronaldo carries criticism for associating with a state accused of sportswashing its human rights record. The report argues he has a direct stake in the Saudi league succeeding: if it does, he is the face of the project; if investment fades, he backed the wrong horse.
- The last meeting: There was no head-to-head farewell at the World Cup. Their final encounter was a 2023 friendly in Riyadh between Messi’s PSG and Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr.
- Who is next: The report names Kylian Mbappe, Lamine Yamal and Erling Haaland as primed to take the spotlight, with Vinicius Jr, Jude Bellingham and Michael Olise cited as highly marketable figures from the World Cup.
Background:
Messi’s Copa America titles and the 2022 World Cup closed the last gaps in his career. Before that, Ronaldo’s Euro 2016 win and league titles in England, Spain and Italy supported the case that he was the more adaptable of the two.
Between the lines:
The report argues the debate is no longer Messi against Ronaldo but Messi against everyone else, and that Messi’s brilliance helped push a less naturally gifted Ronaldo to records of almost 1,000 goals. It also reads their era as unrepeatable: fragmented, clip-driven consumption favours players over clubs, yet Messi and Ronaldo had to win team trophies to claim individual supremacy. Tennis, it notes, is still adjusting after Federer and Nadal.
What’s next
Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr contract expires at the end of this season, the timeline he identified as his last. Messi is contracted to Inter Miami until 2028, leaving any decision on continuing to him.
