Cristiano Ronaldo has added another extraordinary longevity record to his collection, becoming the first footballer to score in 25 consecutive league seasons after finding the net for Al Nassr in their 4-0 win over Al Riyadh on Friday. The 41-year-old began Al Nassr's second Saudi Pro League game of the season on the bench but needed only 21 minutes after being introduced to get off the mark for the 2026-27 campaign. Ronaldo replaced Abdullah Al Hamddan in the 62nd minute before scoring his side's fourth in the 83rd.
Aiman Yahya supplied the ball into the area, and Ronaldo finished left-footed from the centre of the box, putting the finishing touch on another comfortable Al Nassr victory. More significantly, the goal ensured Ronaldo has now scored in every league season since 2002-03, when a teenage forward began his senior career with Sporting CP.
Ronaldo's run of 25 consecutive scoring seasons takes him past Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who found the net across 24 successive seasons between 1999-2000 and 2022-23. Ronaldo's sequence has survived spells in four different countries and five separate club stints. After beginning with Sporting, he scored in every season across his first Manchester United spell, nine campaigns at Real Madrid and three with Juventus before returning to United. He then moved to Saudi Arabia midway through the 2022-23 season and has continued scoring for Al Nassr.
Cristiano Ronaldo now only 23 goals away from 1,000
The strike carried even greater significance in Ronaldo's pursuit of one of football's most staggering individual landmarks. It was the 977th official senior goal of his career, leaving him only 23 short of 1,000.
{{/usCountry}}The strike carried even greater significance in Ronaldo's pursuit of one of football's most staggering individual landmarks. It was the 977th official senior goal of his career, leaving him only 23 short of 1,000.
{{/usCountry}}Ronaldo's current tally comprises 450 goals for Real Madrid, 145 across his two spells with Manchester United, 101 for Juventus, five for Sporting and 130 for Al Nassr, along with 146 goals for Portugal.
The race towards four figures has acquired another layer of intrigue after Ronaldo recently suggested the 2026-27 campaign could be his final season as a professional footballer. "This is probably my last year of football, and I want to leave a spectacular legacy," Ronaldo told Vogue in an interview published earlier this month.
At the time of those comments, Ronaldo was sitting on 976 career goals. His first appearance of the new league season has already moved the counter forward by one. Ronaldo’s Al Nassr contract runs through the campaign, is continuing his pursuit of the 1,000-goal landmark as he approaches the closing stages of his career.
The latest goal also came almost 24 years after Ronaldo opened his senior scoring account with Sporting in 2002. Al Nassr, meanwhile, maintained their perfect start to the Saudi Pro League season with the emphatic victory over Al Riyadh. Abdulelah Al Amri opened the scoring before Gabriel Angelo doubled the advantage before half-time. Joao Felix made it 3-0 in the 58th minute before Ronaldo came off the bench and completed the rout.
For Ronaldo, however, the night produced another entry in an already enormous record book: 25 consecutive seasons with a goal, 977 career strikes and now just 23 remaining in his pursuit of 1,000.