Foreign footballArjen Robben (37) stops playing football. He makes this known on social media. “I have decided to stop my active football career. A very difficult choice. I want to thank everyone for all the heartwarming support.”
A year after his comeback at FC Groningen, Robben is again hanging on to his football boots. “I started this adventure with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. I only had to deal with physical setbacks quite quickly, which prevented me from playing matches for a long time. After a long road of trial and error, I finally managed to play the last games of the season,” Robben wrote in a statement.
The ex-player of Bayern Müchen, Real Madrid and Chelsea, among others, admits that the number of minutes he made for FC Groningen was disappointing last season. “I knew in advance that this could happen, but I took on the challenge and gave everything to make it work. And not just me, everyone within the club and in my immediate environment has helped and supported me at all times. The warm reactions and statements of support from all football fans did not leave me untouched. I am very grateful to everyone for this.”
Quote The body didn’t give me the good feeling and confidence I needed. That’s why I decided to stop.
The lost play-off match against FC Utrecht turned out to be the last in Robben’s career: “After the last match I said I would take the time to make a well-informed decision about the future. Pretty soon after the last game I started training again. For me it was important to maintain the fitness that had been built up from the months before and not to fall back too far. This way I could simultaneously experience whether it felt good from a physical point of view and whether it was realistic to continue for another year. Only the body didn’t give me the good feeling and the confidence I needed. That’s why I decided to stop. This is a very difficult decision, but they sometimes say ‘everything comes to an end’. I think the decision to retire is fair and realistic.”
Robben is an icon of Dutch football. He started his career at FC Groningen, where he will stop now. In 2002, the wing attacker, who made his trademark cutting and scoring from the far corner, made his first transfer to PSV. After that it went fast. He had passages at Chelsea (2004-2007), Real Madrid (2007-2009) and Bayern Munich (2009-2019). With the German top club he became eight times national champion, he won the German Cup five times and wrote the Champions League on his palmares. He was twice English champion at Chelsea and Spanish champion once at Real. As a Dutch international he collected 96 caps, in which Robben scored 37 times. In July 2019 he took a first career break, only to return to work at FC Groningen, the club of his heart, a year later. Due to injuries, he is now definitively putting an end to his richly filled career.
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