Fresh off becoming the A-League Men record goalscorer, Jamie Maclaren believes he could play for another 10 years and even challenge Damian Mori's seemingly unbeatable national league landmark.
Maclaren set a new ALM record of 143 goals, overtaking Besart Berisha (142) with his hat-trick in premiers Melbourne City's 3-1 win over Western United on Saturday night.
The 29-year-old delighted in surpassing the irrepressible Berisha and admitted he couldn't help but eye off Mori's NSL record of 240 goals.
"Good luck to the next guy because I know how hard I worked to get to Besart and how hard he did to get to where he was," Maclaren told reporters.
"Mori is in a league of his own from the NSL days and it's probably down to me to try and track him down for both competitions' title.
"I'll try my best to catch him. I remember people laughed at me and said 'there's no way you're gonna catch Berisha' but I tried my best to track him down."
A master goal poacher, Maclaren referenced the likes of Alessandro Diamanti, Diego Castro and Scott McDonald when making his case for playing well into his 30s.
"I could rattle off a few more names that played to the ages of 38, 39," he said.
"My style could be used. I'm only 29. So I'm talking 10 years from now - so who knows?"
Maclaren could yet be tempted to play overseas again.
But he is focused on becoming a first-time father with pregnant wife Iva, while setting new heights at City.
"To know that there's such a big thing coming in my life off the pitch is something I'm going to focus on a lot, but I want to keep improving," Maclaren said.
"I want to maybe reach 200 goals, I don't know.
"I've got 12 months to run on my contract. There's always people in the background trying to talk about 'do I want to leave? Are there offers, is there interest?' - and there might be.
"But my sole focus will be on the goals because goals bring similar offers, whether that's to stay at City or whatever.
"But my sole focus will be trying to win more trophies with this great bunch of boys."
Maclaren has played in two losing grand finals and missed out on the 2020-21 decider due to being in COVID-19 hotel quarantine after Socceroos duties.
"I played 27 games that year and won the golden boot. So that was a very collective championship," he said.
"But I want to play in a grand final and win one and that's something that you always want to do as a player."
