After news of Gareth Bale retiring at only 33-years-old this year, let’s have a look at the top five footballers who retired too early.
Bale’s retirement has sparked a number of fans citing that he still has a few more years to go. In contrast, he has older peers like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi who are still breaking records at their slightly more advanced age.
However, Gareth Bale is not the only footballer who decided to retire young. There are a number of footballers who retired when they were even younger than Bale for an abundant amount of reasons. Some either returned back to football, not living up to their former glory though, and some instead found opportunities to become managers.
Apparently, according to sportmob, some players even retired as young as 20-years-old. A majority of them retired at around Bale’s age. It seems that it is the most common age group to retire from football.
List of footballers who retired young:
Number 5, Michel Platini
Michel Platini, a French footballer whose career only lasted for 15 years between 1972 and 1987 during which he only served three clubs: Nancy, Saint-Etienne, and Juventus. He is one of the rare footballers with three consecutive Ballon d’Or trophies.
His record scores in the European championship, which was 9 scores, was only surpassed by Cristiano Ronaldo in 2021. His record stayed still for a number of decades. Similar to Tuchel, after retiring from football, he became the coach/manager for the French national team.
He retired in 1987 at the age of 32-years-old. During the time when he retired, he was regarded as France’s top goal scorer. His scores were only beaten by Thierry Henry some two decades later.
Number 4, Eric Cantona
Eric Cantona, a Manchester United player retired from the club when he was 30-years-old, all the way back in 1997. He announced his retirement a month prior and had no specific reason relating to injuries or any other issues.
He has regretted his early retirement by stating, “When you quit football it is not easy, your life becomes difficult. I should know because sometimes I feel I quit too young. I loved the game but I no longer had the passion to go to bed early, not to go out with my friends, not to drink, and not to do a lot of other things, the things I like in life.”
His achievements in football is not something people forgot as he is still mentioned by some fans to this day. He has had successful roles as an actor and starred in a number of blockbuster films.
Number 3, Ruben De La Red
Ruben De La Red, a Spanish footballer who retired at the age of 25-years-old. He is regarded to be a product of Real Madrid and has played for only two clubs for the duration of his professional career. His other team was Getafe.
In October 2008, he passed out during a Spanish Cup game against Real Union. As a result, he was taken to the hospital and eventually declared unable to play the balance of the season. Due to his unfortunate heart condition, which forced him to retire early in late 2010.
In 2015 he returned to Getafe as a manager, however this role was short lived as the team was relegated to one tier lower, he then subsequently left the team.
Number 2, Thomas Tuchel
Thomas Tuchel is quite a popular man on Sportsry as we have written a number of articles either about him or ones that are related to him. Many of you may not know that the former Chelsea manager used to be a footballer himself. Unfortunately, he retired at only 24-years-old in 1998.
He was forced to retire due to his knee cartilage injuries. He was quite the prominent footballer in his early days and unfortunately he was robbed of the chance to end up as a legend on the field. However, destiny had another thing coming for Tuchel where he managed a number of prominent European football teams and won trophies for them.
Number 1, Andreas Laudrup
Andreas Laudrup, a 31-year-old Danish footballer born in Spain who had to end his professional career at the young age of 24, similar to Tuchel. He played for just four clubs during the course of his seven-year career: Lyngby BK, FC Nordsjaelland, AS Saint-Étienne, and AGF.
The aforementioned reason for his early retirement was due to his arthritis. Furthermore, his father was a Danish footballer, Michael Laudrup. Unfortunately, he could not live up to his father’s legacy. Who knows, he might be a manager of a prominent team one day and would still make waves in the football realm.
The two youngest retired players from football were only 24-years-old. The both of them had a promising future in this line of work, but fate decided to take them on another ride. For a few that got lucky, they ended up being prominent managers or even movie stars. Regardless, we hope that Gareth Bale will end up somewhere good.
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