Niklas Sule, AC Milan and Juve dreamer bids farewell to soccer at 30

Also approached in the past by AC Milan and Juventus, Borussia Dortmund defender Niklas Sule has announced his retirement from playing soccer at the end of the season, when his contract with the German club expires and he will be only 30 years old. “I would like to announce that I will end my career this summer,” he said on the “Spielmacher” podcast.

The former German national team player had been pondering the idea of quitting for some time, but the knee injury suffered against Hoffenheim last month was decisive. “When the team doctor did the drawer test in the Hoffenheim locker room, he looked at the physio shaking his head and even he felt no resistance, I went to the shower and cried for ten minutes. At that moment I really thought, ‘It’s ruptured,'” Süle recounted.

“When I had the MRI the next day and got the good news that it was not an ACL rupture, I knew a thousand percent that it was over. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than starting to look at life outside of soccer (being independent, going on vacation, being with my children) and then having to deal with the third cruciate ligament injury.”

Sule, 30, had arrived at Dortmund in 2022 from Bayern Munich and made 109 appearances with the yellow and red players. In total he played 299 Bundesliga games between Hoffenheim, Bayern and Dortmund, as well as 49 appearances with the German national team.