Joel Matip says enough: former Liverpool man announces retirement
Official: Joel Matip retires
Joel Matip announces his retirement. The now former Cameroonian defender has decided to hang up his boots at the age of 33, after nearly 350 appearances and 10 titles between Schalke 04 and Liverpool. Making the player's decision known was the English club through a long celebratory message.
Signed on a zero-parameter basis from Schalke 04 in 2016, Matip è was a key figure during Jürgen Klopp's administration as coach, helping to secure a return to the Champions League and becoming a key player in the race for glory in the competition in 2019, including an assist for Divock Origi in the Madrid final against Tottenham Hotspur. Matip è starred in Liverpool winning the UEFA Super Cup and was involved in nine Premier League matches in 2019-20, when Klopp’s team ended the club’s 30-year wait to be crowned champions of England again.
After a lengthy injury ended his 2020-21 season, the former Cameroonian national è returned to top form when the Reds launched a quadruple bid the following season.
Number 32 totaled 43 games, the most in a single season for the club, and è appeared in both finals, when the Carabao Cup and the Emirates FA Cup were lifted at Wembley, while he and his teammates also finished second in the top flight and the Champions League. He continued to be an important member of the team in 2022-23 and early 2023-24, but a serious anterior cruciate ligament injury suffered last December prevented him from playing for the club again.
Matip and his supporters said goodbye to each other at Anfield on the last day of last season, before his contract expired, and now he has confirmed that his playing career è has come to an end.
He previously spent seven years representing Schalke at the senior level, after growing up in the club’s youth ranks and winning the German Cup with the club in 2011. In international soccer, Matip collected 27 appearances and scored one goal for Cameroon, with whom he played at the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. All of us at LFC wish Joel and his family the best for the future" this is the statement issued by Liverpool.
