The only two players older than Cristiano Ronaldo still playing in Europe’s big leagues | OneFootball

Cristiano Ronaldo turns 41 today, but he’s not the only veteran footballer defying Father Time.

In fact, while Ronaldo chases down 1000 career goals away from the footballing mainstream out in Saudi Arabia, there are a couple of notable players who continue plying their trade at the very top level in Europe.

Here are the only two footballers older than Cristiano Ronaldo still playing across Europe’s five major leagues.

Dante

Every year we browse the list of golden oldies still playing in Europe, and every year we’re amazed to see that Brazilian defender Dante still hasn’t hung up his boots.

He turned 42 back in October but remains an important squad player for Nice.

Playing opportunities are understandably dwindling as he takes more of a backseat role, offering up his experience in the dressing room, but he’s still made eight appearances (five starts) between their Ligue 1 and Europa League campaigns.

Dante even suffered a cruciate ligament injury at the age of 37, but that didn’t stop him plugging away for another half-decade.

“I’ve been a professional for 22 years now and I’m still motivated. That will is still there, simply because I love football,” he says.

Santi Cazorla

One of the most universally loved players of his generation, it’s a minor miracle that Cazorla features here, given his career looked like it might’ve been over a decade ago.

He enjoyed a wonderful renaissance at Villarreal after leaving Arsenal, spent three years presumably banking shedloads out in Qatar and then signed for second-tier Real Oviedo.

“I would play for free but you’re not allowed,” Cazorla told The Guardian of his romantic return to his boyhood club.

“They made a good offer. My wife said: ‘No, no, you’re not going to Oviedo to earn, you’re going home to enjoy it, to help, to give.’

“I called my agent: ‘I don’t want any money.’ I told the president: minimum salary, 10% of shirt sales to the academy. It was done that night.”

Beautiful stuff.

At the age of 40, in his second season back home, Cazorla scored in the play-offs to help lead Oviedo back to La Liga after a 24-year exile.

Their return hasn’t been a fairytale, though. It’s been a long old slog of a season, in which they’ve already sacked two managers and scored a grand total of four goals on home soil.

Current boss Guillermo Almada hasn’t fancied the veteran much, but he turned to him in their latest match.

Cazorla appeared off the bench midway through the second and inspired them to a 1-0 victory over Girona, three points that could prove vital in their faint hopes of staying up.