Fellow sufferer understands Pröpper’s choice: “He has been in a straightjacket for years”

Few people saw that Davy Pröpper announced last week that he would stop playing professional football. Former football player Arco Jochemsen once stood at such a crossroads and understands the choice of the former PSV player.

Jochemsen played at Vitesse, Feyenoord and FC Utrecht, among others, but decided to stop after three KNVB Cup finals at the age of 33 and become a math teacher. “I liked playing football itself, I enjoyed it. But I have always mainly seen it as a game, I have also always wanted to look a bit further,” says Jochemsen in conversation with Algemeen Dagblad .

That is why he understands Pröpper in his choice to hang up his shoes at the age of thirty. “I understand Davy,” said the math teacher. “That boy has been in a straitjacket for years. Training, playing matches, resting. And yes, from the outside it looks nice. You have status and earn a lot of money. But I can well imagine that at a certain moment you start looking to more content. Brave that he has handed in his contract.”

Pröpper broke through at Vitesse as a teenager and played successively for PSV, Brighton & Hove Albion and PSV again. Pröpper also played seventeen international matches for the Orange, in which he was accurate three times.