ZCZC
BSP-05
FBL-GER-HOEWEDES
World Cup winner Hoewedes retires at 32
BERLIN, July 31, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Benedikt Hoewedes, a German World
Cup winner, said on Friday that he is retiring aged 32 for family
reasons.
He made 44 appearances for Germany at centre-back and full-back and
played every minute on the way to triumph in the 2014 World Cup in
Brazil.
He played more than 330 times for Schalke before spending the
2017-18 season on loan at Juventus and then moving to Lokomotiv Moscow
for two seasons. The Russian club agreed to release Hoewedes from his
contract in June.
“I was recently with my wife and son in a camper van in the south
of France,” Hoewedes told Der Spiegel magazine in an interview
published on Friday.
“I noticed how happy I was to see my son next to me. Football
seemed so unimportant.”
“My son is 21 months old and during my time in Moscow I wasn’t able
to enjoy it. And I suffered from it,” he said.
“It’s difficult to take the plunge, to give up playing in front of
sold-out stadiums. Maybe this period with the coronavirus and these
ghostly matches was a harbinger.”
Hoewedes also criticised the “brutal” development of football,
which “is moving further and further away from the fans”.
He is the seventh 2014 world champion to hang up his boots. Two
weeks ago, former Borussia Dortmund player Andre Schuerrle
surprisingly retired at the age of just 29.
BSS/AFP/MRU/1848hrs