Cristiano Ronaldo Targets 1,000 Goals Before Retirement
Cristiano Ronaldo has put a rough date on the end of one of football’s most relentless careers – and set himself one last, audacious target.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Vogue about his upcoming wedding to Georgina Rodriguez, the Portuguese icon revealed he expects to retire at the end of the 2026/27 season. He framed his final years around a simple ambition: to leave a “spectacular legacy”.
He already has one. He wants more.
At 41, Ronaldo is still chasing numbers that barely sound real. The milestone he has fixed his eyes on before he finally walks away is 1,000 career goals. Not appearances. Goals.
According to BBC Sport, he currently stands on 976. That total already spans two decades, five leagues and an era-defining rivalry. Yet the gap to four figures is not huge. Match his 28-goal return from the 2025/26 Saudi Pro League campaign one more time, and the mark will fall. Another rewrite of the record books, another chapter added to a career that has already stretched belief.
Of those 976 strikes, 103 came in the Premier League for Manchester United, across two separate spells at Old Trafford between 2003 and 2009, and again from 2021 to 2022. That haul – 10.6 per cent of his career goals – places him fourth on United’s all-time Premier League scoring list:
- Wayne Rooney – 183
- Ryan Giggs – 109
- Paul Scholes – 107
- Cristiano Ronaldo – 103
- Ruud van Nistelrooy – 95
His first stint in Manchester turned him from prodigy into serial winner. Three Premier League titles, two EFL Cups, one Champions League, one FA Cup – and a Ballon d’Or to go with them. He returned as a global superstar; he may finally bow out as the only man to ever score 1,000 goals in elite football.
For one of the Premier League’s greatest players, it would be a suitably grand full stop.
Spurs’ Europa League heroes drift away
While Ronaldo plots his exit on his own terms, Tottenham Hotspur are living through a very different kind of farewell – a slow, ruthless dismantling of a recent success story.
Roberto De Zerbi’s overhaul in north London accelerated over the weekend. Cristian Romero, Spurs’ club captain in 2025/26 and a symbol of their edge under previous managers, has joined Atletico Madrid. Djed Spence has gone too, completing a move to Inter Milan.
Now Guglielmo Vicario is expected to follow them out of the door and back to Serie A, with multiple reports indicating Juventus are close to securing the goalkeeper on loan.
His likely departure underlines how far Spurs have moved from the side that lifted the UEFA Europa League in May 2025. In the 15 months since that night in Bilbao, when Ange Postecoglou’s team beat Manchester United, the club have changed manager three times. Six of the 15 players used that evening have now gone.
The exits tell their own story. Son Heung-Min traded London for Los Angeles last August, signing for LAFC and ending a decade-long bond with Spurs fans. Brennan Johnson, the match-winner in that Europa League triumph, crossed the capital to Crystal Palace in January and has since switched again, joining Everton with Dwight McNeil heading the other way. Yves Bissouma left when his contract expired this summer.
De Zerbi is not just tweaking a squad. He is tearing down the framework of a trophy-winning team and building something entirely new. The question is how quickly that revolution can turn into results.
Manchester City push for Bouaddi
At the other end of the Premier League, Manchester City are looking to reload.
Ayyoub Bouaddi, the highly rated Moroccan midfielder from Lille, has emerged as a prime target. Multiple outlets, including BBC Sport, report that City are in talks to sign the teenager, who impressed for the Atlas Lions at the 2026 World Cup.
City head coach Enzo Maresca did not name Bouaddi directly after their most recent defeat, but he made it clear that movement is coming before the window shuts.
“We knew already before the game the things that we need to do [in the transfer window],” he said. “It is not because we lost the game.
“We are quite clear. For sure, we are going to do something before the transfer window closes.”
Lille boss Davide Ancelotti, son of Carlo Ancelotti, knows exactly what that “something” might involve. He admitted over the weekend that Bouaddi is attracting serious attention.
“Of course, there are negotiations. Many clubs are interested in him,” Ancelotti said. “He's a very, very good player and I hope he'll stay with us.”
Lille hope. Europe’s elite, City among them, are testing that resolve.
Rogers steps into Chelsea shirt – and into big footsteps
Morgan Rogers needed only 10 minutes to make his mark in a Chelsea shirt.
On his debut in a 3-1 pre-season win over Real Sociedad, the forward – signed from Aston Villa – scored his first goal for the club, a sharp reminder of why Chelsea moved for him this summer.
Afterwards, he spoke about the pull of Stamford Bridge and the players who shaped his football education.
“Chelsea is a club that wants to win things,” the 24-year-old told Sky Sports. “It's a club that I've always grown up watching win titles, win Champions Leagues and I want to be in teams that do that as well.
“The players - the [Eden] Hazards, the [Didier] Drogbas, the [Frank] Lampards coming through when I was growing up watching football. It's a massive team and they were always winning and competing for titles and I want to be in teams that do that here.”
Rogers has walked into a dressing room still trying to rediscover that old Chelsea certainty. The Premier League campaign begins in a week with a short trip across west London to Fulham. His first competitive test in blue will not wait long.
Alisson impressed by Liverpool’s new defensive steel
At Liverpool, the focus is on the other end of the pitch.
Supporters finally got a first real look at summer signings Jeremy Jacquet and Ronald Araujo in Sunday’s 2-0 win over Como. Jacquet, signed from Rennes earlier in the year, started and scored the second goal just before half-time. Araujo, on loan from Barcelona, took over after the break.
Both are fighting to earn a place in front of Alisson. The goalkeeper liked what he saw.
“Both of them played really, really well,” he said. “Jeremy had a great first half, great on the ball, great defending and controlling the space in behind and in front of him as well. A great performance.
“Ronald as well had a really good game in the second half. It is really good to have a strong centre-back to help the team in depth as well. That's what we need if we want to compete for trophies this season.
“That's what we want, that's the mentality of Liverpool players. Playing alongside Virgil (van Dijk) I think is a great thing for them as well."
Liverpool have spent recent seasons trying to rebuild the defensive platform that once made them untouchable. If Jacquet and Araujo can deliver what Alisson sees in them, that platform might be returning just in time for another title push.
From Ronaldo’s chase for 1,000 goals to Spurs’ exodus, City’s pursuit of Bouaddi, Chelsea’s new hope in Rogers and Liverpool’s defensive reshaping, the game’s biggest stories are already in motion. The new season has not even kicked off, and yet the landscape is shifting under everyone’s feet.
