Five great footballers who retired early while Varane calls it a day

Football players have a limited lifespan. It is all the more sad when a talented player has to retire from football early.

According to the PFA, the average career length of a professional footballer is eight years, while the average retirement age is 35. However, some players hang up their boots earlier, whether due to injury, personal circumstances or because they have lost their love for the game.

Raphael Varane is the latest star to end his career a day earlier than expected. He announced on Instagram that he has played his last game and will take on a non-playing role at Como.

“I have no regrets, I wouldn’t change anything,” he wrote. The centre-back, who won the World Cup and four Champions Leagues during his illustrious career, is only 31 years old, but injuries have taken their toll.

Let’s remember, in chronological order, some other greats of the game who said goodbye earlier than expected.

Five great footballers who ended their active careers early:

Jack Wilshere

After breaking into the Arsenal team at just 16, Jack Wilshere was considered one of the brightest talents of his generation. And for the first half of his career he was just that, but the second half was marred by injuries.

The midfielder never fully reached his potential and spent his final years at clubs such as Bournemouth and West Ham United before retiring in 2022 after a brief spell at Danish club Aarhus.

“Honestly, it’s been hard to accept that my career has been on the rocks recently for reasons beyond my control, while at the same time feeling like I still had so much to give.

“Having played at the highest level, I’ve always had such ambitions within the game and if I’m honest, sometimes I didn’t imagine I would be in this position,” he said.

“However, after having time to reflect and talk to those closest to me, I know that now is the right time. Despite the difficult moments, I look back with great pride at my career and what I have achieved.”

Read – Five times injuries changed the Premier League title race

Sergio Aguero

One of the Premier League’s greatest strikers of all time, Sergio Aguero scored 260 goals in 390 appearances for Manchester City. After a decade of trophies for the club, he moved to Barcelona in 2021, ​​but his stay in Catalonia was short-lived.

A week after scoring his first goal for Barça against Real Madrid in October, he was hospitalised with chest pains and was diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmia. Although it was initially expected that he would be out for three months, he announced his retirement from football in December of that year.

Eric Cantona

The shock that accompanied Eric Cantona’s sudden retirement from football in 1997 was palpable. Here was arguably the best player in English football at the time, ending his career at the age of 30 (thirty!), when there was still so much to be won at Manchester United.

The Frenchman was a poster boy for the club’s success in the 1990s and key to ending their 26-year wait for a league title, so it was a shame he missed out on United’s Champions League victory just two years later, as well as France’s 1998 World Cup triumph.

But it was typical of Cantona to retire in this way. His appetite satiated, he left on his terms and left everyone wanting more, including his manager Alex Ferguson, who wrote the ex-striker a heartfelt letter.

Reading – Eric Cantona and the feelings he aroused in us

Marco van Basten

When Diego Maradona was once asked who the best player he had ever seen was, he replied: “The best player is Romario or Marco van Basten.” Try to imagine what the world missed when the Dutchman had to end his career at the age of 31.

By this time, however, he had already been retired for two years due to recurring ankle injuries; his last game for AC Milan had been the 1993 Champions League final against Marseille.

Van Basten had already proven himself to be one of the greatest players of all time, winning two European Cups and three Ballon d’Or awards, and scoring perhaps the most spectacular goal in a major final with his winning goal against the USSR in the 1988 European Championship final.

Only Fontaine

Just Fontaine was a formidable striker in his time and set the record for most goals in a single World Cup season in 1958 when he scored 13 goals for France – a record he still holds today and will probably always hold.

Fontaine, who scored 30 goals in just 21 appearances for the French national team, was part of the highly successful Stade de Reims team that won three league titles and reached the final of the 1959 European Cup.

Unfortunately for Fontaine, his career was forced to end due to injury at the age of 28, just four years after his heroics at the World Championships in Sweden.

See also – Five of the best rivalries between Premier League players

Follow The Football Faithful on social media:

Instagram | Þjórsárdalur | YouTube page | TikTok