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December 4, 2025
Ronaldo should be easing into retirement by now, but he’s doing the opposite. At forty, he’s scored 30 goals in 34 matches this year, placing him seventh among all scorers over thirty. One goal every 99 minutes isn’t a farewell tour, it’s proof he’s still troubling defenders who expected age to finally catch him...
Forty years old should mean something in football. It should mean retirement tours, nostalgia matches, maybe some coaching badges. Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't care what forty should mean. He went out and scored 30 goals across 34 matches this calendar year, and that puts him seventh on the list when you rank players over thirty by their goal tallies. One goal every 99 minutes at that age says something about what he's still capable of doing on a pitch. Al Nassr got themselves a striker who keeps producing numbers that embarrass players twenty years younger.
Cristiano Ronaldo - Diamond heart
Harry Kane stands at the top with 38 goals from 35 Bayern Munich appearances. Every 81 minutes, another goal. The England captain tore through German defenses all year, and people started talking about him as a Ballon d'Or candidate if he keeps this going. Lionel Messi took second place with 37 goals across 40 Inter Miami games. Staying healthy helped him post his best club year since 2019. Robert Lewandowski grabbed third with 36 goals in 41 Barcelona matches. Thirty-seven years old and still putting up those kinds of returns.
Then comes Vitor Roque with 34, followed by Jefferson Souza and Vladislavs Fjodorovs who both finished on 30 goals in Latvia's top flight. When you line up everyone on 30 goals and compare their minutes-per-goal, Ronaldo sits between Souza and Fjodorovs. The Saudi Pro League doesn't match up exactly with Latvia's defensive standards, so the comparison only tells you so much.
Four games remain on Al Nassr's schedule before the year ends. Ronaldo still has time to move up these rankings. Since he arrived in January 2023, he's scored 84 Saudi Pro League goals from 86 matches. Add in every other competition, and you get 110 goals from 123 Al Nassr appearances. This season started particularly well: 10 goals in his first nine league matches, better than a goal per game.
Supporters who follow every Ronaldo match tend to keep tabs on betting odds around his goal output. Markets for next season's top scorer already have his name in them. The latest review of cryptocurrency betting sites explains how Bitcoin changed the whole betting experience for football fans. Deposits clear in minutes instead of days, withdrawals happen without the usual banking headaches, and odds on player-specific markets update in real time.
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The whole list of over-30 goalscorers makes you rethink what age means for strikers. Kane's 31, Messi's 38, Lewandowski's 37, Ronaldo's 40. All of them show that proper training and smart game management can push careers way past where they used to end. Bayern's manager Vincent Kompany, praised how Kane has become better with age and pointed to his work ethic as the driver behind those consistent performances. Ronaldo fits that same mold.
What separates players who disappear at 35 from those who score 30 at 40 comes down to the mental side. Ronaldo's diet gets discussed constantly, his sleep schedule gets analyzed, his gym sessions get documented. But the real difference is how he refuses to believe he's declining. Criticism becomes motivation instead of a reason to quit. That attitude keeps him going when other players his age have already moved into retirement.
Critics look at Ronaldo's goals and immediately bring up the Saudi Pro League defending. Fair enough, but the league changed dramatically after 2023 when Saudi clubs started throwing money at foreign talent. Al Nassr faces squads with international experience and European professionals who moved to the Gulf for big contracts. The defending isn't Premier League quality, but it's not Sunday league either.
His 99 minutes per goal sits close enough to Kane's 81 minutes in the Bundesliga and Lewandowski's La Liga numbers. A gap exists between the leagues, obviously, but it's not as massive as people claim. The service Ronaldo gets from his teammates matters too. His movement and finishing can trouble any defense, Riyadh or anywhere else. People who say he picked Saudi Arabia for easy goals ignore what these numbers actually represent. Thirty goals at forty years old doesn't happen by accident, regardless of where you play.
The 2026 World Cup is Ronaldo's final attempt at the one trophy missing from his collection. Portugal's captain holds 143 international goals as of late 2025. FIFA cleared him to play what would be his sixth World Cup appearance. Five Ballons d'Or sit in his collection, along with multiple Champions League trophies and the 2016 European Championship. Only the World Cup remains absent. Next summer might be his last opportunity to change that.
Al Nassr's remaining fixtures before 2025 end give him chances to add more goals to his tally. Seventh place on this list won't make him happy. But showing up on it at all when you're forty tells a different story than the placement itself. His refusal to fade away keeps defying what everyone thought forty meant for a footballer.
Cristiano Ronaldo next game for Al Nassr is on December 21, against Al Najma, for the Saudi Pro League. You can watch Al Najma vs Al Nassr, Lazio vs AC Milan, Betis vs Barcelona, Manchester United vs West Ham, Aston Villa vs Arsenal and Benfica vs Sporting, all matches provided from our streaming football game pages.
Al Nassr next game:
Al Najma vs Al Nassr kick-off time (21-12-2025):
Beijing (China) | UTC/GMT+8: 01:30
India (New Delhi) | UTC/GMT+5.30: 23:00
Saudi Arabia (Riyadh) | UTC/GMT+3: 20:30
Spain (Madrid) | UTC/GMT+1: 18:30
Portugal and England (Lisbon/London) | UTC/GMT+0: 17:30
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) | UTC/GMT-3: 14:30
New York (United States) | UTC/GMT-4: 13:30
Los Angeles (United States) | UTC/GMT-7: 10:30
Sources: ronaldo7.net / espn.com / cbssports.com
