Overview
- Ronaldo made the declaration in a live video link interview to a Riyadh tourism forum carried by CNN, shifting recent retirement speculation to a firm plan.
- The 40-year-old would be 41 at the tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and a selection would make it his record sixth World Cup.
- Portugal has not yet clinched qualification for 2026 and needs two points from its remaining group matches against Ireland and Armenia.
- He remains the men's all-time leading international scorer with 143 goals and has surpassed 950 career goals, though he laughed off talk of scoring a 1,000th in a World Cup final as “too perfect.”
- Ronaldo clarified that his earlier comment about retiring “soon” means one or two years, and he continues at Al-Nassr on a contract running through 2027.