CRISTIANO RONALDO plans to play for ‘many more years’ and dreams of winning the World Cup with Portugal.
Juventus superstar Ronaldo, 35, is seven goals shy of the international world record of 109 held by Iran’s Ali Daei.
Cristiano Ronaldo vowed to play on after winning the Golden FootCredit: Getty Images – Getty
The five-time Ballon d’Or winner is leading the race for the Serie A Golden Boot this season with 12 goals in ten games.
Despite Ronaldo’s prolific finishing the Old Lady are in sixth place – ten points behind Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s AC Milan – as they chase a tenth successive Scudetto.
Speaking after winning the Golden Foot award – a gong that a player can only win once and a prize even GOAT rival Lionel Messi has never bagged -Ronaldo said: “It doesn’t matter the age. What is important is the mind.
“It doesn’t matter if Cristiano Ronaldo is good, you don’t know tomorrow what is going to happen. I live in the present, in the moment.
“The moment is good, I feel happy, I feel sharp and in a good moment in my life. I hope to play many, many years more but you never know.
“This is football, we don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow.
“When I speak to young boys I always say ‘enjoy the moment’ because we never know what will happen.
“My eyes see the future very, very bright, so I am happy with that.”
Ronaldo has scored an incredible 654 goals in 864 club games during a glittering club career at Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid and now Juve.
He helped Portugal lift the 2016 European Championship and will be looking to fire his country to a defence of their title in the delayed Euro 2020 tournament next summer.
And the former Red Devils hero is looking even further ahead as he said it would be a ‘dream’ to win the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, when he will be 37.
Ronaldo added: “We won 2016 and now we want to win the World Cup.
“It’s possible, yes, it’s possible. Everything is possible. But you have to be realistic as well. As I told you many, many times, my dream is to win something for Portugal national team and I won two titles, which is making me feel happy.
“I win [with] every club that I played with, but World Cup… it’s a dream. It’s a dream.”
Ronaldo and Messi are both named in the Ballon d’Or all-time best XI
Ronaldo – who was named player of the century at the Globe Soccer Awards – has continued to star despite the lack of fans during the pandemic and tested positive for Covid-19 himself in October.
He made it abundantly clear he does not enjoy playing without the usual chorus of adoring supporters and said: “I don’t like to play in the stadiums without fans, it’s like going to the circus but you don’t see clowns.
“The pandemic has made people crazy. I hope soon they can open the gates of the stadiums.
“We have to live with that, we have to try to do a normal life but of course we have to respect the rules. But to play without the fans, I really don’t like it.”
Cristiano Ronaldo reveals he finds it boring playing in empty stadiums and misses when fans boo him
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
