After a lifetime focused on doing one thing, it can be hard for players to know when to pack it all in.

Cristiano Ronaldo has become the latest footballer who really should have retired a few years ago and while he is determined to drag the rest of Portugal down with him, he is not alone in sticking around past his sell-by date.

We’ve compiled an XI who probably held out longer than they should’ve.

Van der Sar retired exactly one day too late.

That day was the 28th of May 2011 when Manchester United faced Barcelona at Wembley in the Champions League final.

It has gone down as the most dominant display of a club team in history and so blaming Van der Sar for the loss is perhaps a little harsh, but he did look like a 40-year-old in goal.

He probably should have saved Messi’s goal that was right down the middle and while no one was saving David Villa’s effort, Pedro also beat the Dutchman at the near post.

Would a different keeper have stopped Barcelona winning? Probably not, but Van der Sar was beaten too easily for United to have any kind of hope.

Mid-season retirements are rare, but that was the case for Neville who suddenly realised he was not able to play at the top level during a match against West Brom.

“When you’ve got average players causing you a problem, you know you’re in trouble,” he said, which is perhaps a little harsh on Jerome Thomas.

United actually won the game 2-1, but Neville knew he was done and left on the 71st minute mark.

Being around the Aston Villa squad in the 2015-16 season was pretty grim regardless of who you were. But when you are a Premier League winner, you have a particularly large target on your back.

Lescott arrived at Villa, which is his boyhood club, when he was well past his best and his relationship with the fans quickly deteriorated.

This, of course, was not helped by Lescott tweeting a picture of his very expensive car after a 6-0 loss to Liverpool.

The defender blamed it on his pocket, but it summed up his Villa experience that ended in relegation.

He did not help matters when he said ‘Now it’s confirmed maybe it’s a weight off the shoulders.’ Can’t blame that on your pocket, Joleon.

One minute you’re the best centre back in the league, the next you are playing second fiddle to Nedum Onuoha.

Having been politely but firmly shown the door at United, Ferdinand reunited with Harry Redknapp at QPR but was 36 and moved exactly like that.

He got relegated to the bench, even picked up an FA ban for calling a fan’s mum a ‘sket’ on Twitter, and decided to retire after just one season at Loftus Road.

QPR finished bottom, while Ferdinand’s unveiling picture has become a meme and cautionary tale.

We’ve shamelessly shoved Walker over to the left side but his current performances at Burnley make him worthy of doing so.

He’s the captain of the club that is bottom of the Championship, having failed to win any of their opening eight games.

And for a player whose pace defined him, that has deserted him. He had a particular stinker against Norwich as he gave away a goal as part of a 4-1 defeat.

Barry’s late career was down to the midfielder trying to break Ryan Giggs’ record for the most Premier League appearances.

He achieved that eventually, but was also part of a four-man group of West Brom players that stole a taxi whilst on a squad trip to Barcelona.

Barry was 36 at the time and in the category of “should really know better.”

Really Edgar? Barnet?

Two years after he had seemingly already retired, Davids inexplicably signed for League Two Barnet in a player-manager role, in a move that still seems bizarre.

In his first game, Barnet were thumped 4-1 by Portsmouth and Davids produced some increasingly erratic behaviour.

He told players they would be fined if they called him gaffer rather than his preferred sir or mister. Something that does not really work while you are still a player.

There is also a story that he once coached a training session from inside of his Bentley with the heating on. He also reportedly had a deal about not travelling to away games if they were too far away.

Upon Barnet’s relegation to the Conference, Davids then took the number one shirt which made him a prime target for all opposition.

Davids got five red cards while playing for Barnet, including two in the final matches of his career.

Ending your career at a Championship side with a number on your back that is related to a betting firm is hardly befitting of Manchester United’s record goalscorer.

That was though the path Rooney chose who joined Derby as a player-coach in January 2020.

In reality, Rooney should really have retired sooner. No one would begrudge him the MLS payday that he took with DC United but seeing Rooney playing for Derby in centre mid was a sorry sight.

Does anyone really care about this 1,000-goal obsession Ronaldo has?

He’ll get there eventually, maybe having to drop to an even lower standard than Saudi to achieve it, but it feels like the longer Ronaldo plays, the more damage he does to his legacy.

His latest stunt with Portugal is just as easy to remember as his goals for United and Madrid but Ronaldo has not been a top-level player for some time now.

Sure, he would not be the first player to keep going into his 40s, seemingly with nothing else to do in life, but it is the fact that he insists on being treated as one of the world’s best that makes it such an uncomfortable watch for everyone else.

Long after that night game against Barcelona, Andrey Arshavin was playing for the likes of Kairat in Kazakhstan.

He won the player of the year in 2016 which is quite the low bar for a former Champions League player and his final years really petered out.

He should really have hung it up after playing for Zenit having failed to score double-digit league goals since the 2009-10 season with Arsenal.

Torres was only 35 when he retired but even that felt a couple years too late.

When should he have retired? The Torres we knew was arguably gone in his final year at Liverpool and was definitely gone when he moved to Chelsea.

From there, he slipped further and further down the footballing ladder until he arrived back at Atletico who signed him mainly due to his association with the club and not the player he now was.