Cristiano Ronaldo: Can He Play Until 44?

Cristiano Ronaldo has spent two decades turning the improbable into routine. Even so, the latest prediction about his future borders on the outrageous.

Eric Djemba-Djemba, once a team-mate of the young winger who arrived from Sporting in 2003, believes Ronaldo can keep going until 44 or even 45. Not in a veterans’ league. At the sharp end of the professional game.

This is not a casual guess from afar. It comes from someone who watched the foundations being laid at Carrington, long before the Ballons d’Or and Champions League trophies began to stack up.

From raw talent to relentless machine

Manchester United knew they were getting a prodigy when they struck that deal with Sporting. Nobody knew they were signing a phenomenon who would bend the sport’s history around his own ambition.

Now 41 and still driving Al-Nassr in the Saudi Pro League, Ronaldo has already added another domestic title to a collection that spans United, Real Madrid and Juventus. The record books have become a running dialogue with his career: new milestones, new numbers, the same obsession.

He is closing in on a scarcely believable target – 1,000 competitive goals – while preparing to captain Portugal at the 2026 World Cup. Five Ballons d’Or, multiple Champions League crowns and still he hunts the next challenge as if he is the teenager trying to impress in his first English winter.

Djemba-Djemba remembers where that edge was forged.

“I remember the training, people they can tackle him every time – Gary Neville, Roy Keane, they were tackling him,” he recalled, speaking to GOAL via Betinia NJ. “But he was there, he was crying, but he would wake up, continue running, and I'm happy for him, he deserved it.”

Those early sessions were brutal. Senior pros tested the skinny kid with the stepovers, hammered into him that talent alone would never be enough at Old Trafford. He took the hits, literally, and came back for more. That stubborn refusal to stay down became his trademark.

“He wants to be there, he always wants to be first, he always wants to be there winning the game, winning the training,” Djemba-Djemba said. The drive has not faded with age; if anything, it has hardened.

“He’s a robot”: the push towards 44

At an age when most forwards have long since retired or retreated into coaching, Ronaldo continues to chase games, goals and trophies. Djemba-Djemba is convinced the engine still has years left in it.

“I think he can go to 44, 45, Cristiano can do that, he has energy to do that,” he insisted. “He's amazing. I don't know how he does it, but he's a robot, he's amazing!”

There is a caveat. Djemba-Djemba doubts Ronaldo can carry both club and country on his shoulders indefinitely if he stretches his career to those extremes.

“I think Cristiano can go until 44, but he cannot do until 44, 45, with the national team and his team,” he said. The schedule, the travel, the emotional weight of leading Portugal – all of it adds up, even for a body tuned as obsessively as Ronaldo’s.

Still, the idea refuses to die: Ronaldo, at 44, walking out at yet another World Cup.

The World Cup farewell Portugal dreams of

If he makes it that far, the stage could hardly be more poetic. The 2030 World Cup is set to be shared by Portugal, Spain and Morocco. A home World Cup, of sorts, for the greatest player in Portugal’s history.

Djemba-Djemba can see it now – not as fantasy, but as a fitting final act.

“I think if Cristiano goes to 44, and in four years the World Cup is in Portugal, if Cristiano is still playing, I think it will be a good last competition for him to finish his career in Portugal with the World Cup,” he said.

The notion goes beyond tactics or minutes on the pitch. It is about gratitude.

“I'm sure in Portugal they will say yes for the manager to bring him to be there in the squad,” Djemba-Djemba added. “I would do that for him, bring him in the squad, to say to him thank you for everything he did for his country.”

By then, the numbers may be almost surreal: the goals, the caps, the records. Yet the image is simple. One last tournament. One last shirt. One last chance for a country to say goodbye on its own soil.

Ronaldo has spent a career defying the limits others tried to place on him. The only question now is whether time itself will finally win, or whether he will drag the finish line all the way to 2030.