5 legendary footballers who retired prematurely due to injury
Injuries are part and parcel of a contact sport like football. While many footballers keep themselves in optimum physical condition to prevent niggles, the possibility of injury can never be ruled out completely.
Most top clubs have large rosters to mitigate the loss of a key player to injury, especially at the tail end of a season when titles are on the line. Of course, game management also comes into play to ensure the top footballers can compete in most of the 'big' games.
Nonetheless, injuries can still occur, and when it happens to a key player, it can have a debilitating effect on the team, and an entire season could get derailed. An example in this regard is Virgil van Dijk, who suffered a season-ending injury early in the 2020-21 Premier League season. Liverpool struggled in their defensive talisman's absence before the reigning champions staged a late rally to finish a distant third.
However, injuries can also derail promising careers, something that is exacerbated by poor lifestyles, unprofessionalism and a lack of dedication. On that note, here's a look at five legendary footballers, in no particular order, whose careers ended prematurely because of injury:
#5 Just Fontaine
Just Fontaine of France is one of the best footballers who never won the FIFA World Cup.
The Frenchman scored a stunning 13 goals in just six games at Sweden 1958, a record for most goals in a single edition of the quadrennial competition, which stands to this day. His four-goal haul against eventual champions West Germany remains the only instance of a quadruple in World Cup history. He also scored in all six games of that tournament, which is another record.
Fontaine had a decent club football career, playing nearly 250 games. But it was cut short at the age of 28, just four years after his World Cup exploits, due to a recurring leg injury.
Despite his early retirement, Brazilian legend Pele, in 2004, named Fontaine as one of the greatest living footballers.
#4 Brian Laudrup
Brian Laudrup, one of the key players in Denmark's improbable Euro 1992 triumph, may not be a legend of the game in the strictest sense of the term. But the former Danish midfielder, younger brother of the more famous Michael Laudrup, was a versatile player and regarded as one of the best of his generation.
The now 52-year-old had an impressive resume in club football too, winning league titles in three different countries and scoring 84 goals. But a persistent injury forced him to retire at the age of 31.
Laudrup suffered a chronic cruciate ligament injury in 1991, which apparently got worse after the 1998 FIFA World Cup. It forced him to call it quits three years later. He said after his retirement:
"The last six months, it's been really bad. I've been taking all sorts of tablets and trying all sorts of treatments, but unfortunately the problem was not to go away. I've been thinking about an operation, but specialists in Holland and Denmark couldn't give me any guarantees the problem would be solved, so I thought it was about time to call it a day."
However, he fondly looked back at his career without regrets, saying:
"You have to look over the 14 years you've had, and it's been tremendous."