Andre Schurrle retires at 29

[Longineu]

Andre Schurrle, a World Cup winner with Germany in 2014, has announced his retirement from professional football on the age of 29.

Schurrle, who won the Premier League with Chelsea in 2015 and was on the books of Borussia Dortmund, told Der Spiegel of his decision on Friday.

"I quit," the former Chelsea attacker said. "The decision grew in me for a long time. I no longer need applause."

Earlier this week, Schurrle cancelled his contract at Borussia Dortmund, the club he had been at since 2016 but has not featured for since 2018. He reportedly received a €2.5 million compensation for the final year of his contract, which would have earned him over €7m.

Schurrle told Der Spiegel that he felt alone most of the time especially when the "lows got lower and the highlights fewer."

He added: "You always have to play a certain role to survive in this business otherwise you lose your job and don't get a new one."

After two largely unsuccessful years at the Westfalenstadion, he was first loaned to Fulham, where he was relegated from the Premier League and then he spent last season at Spartak Moscow.

He made his Bundesliga debut for Mainz in 2009 at the age of 18 and in 2011 joined Bayer Leverkusen before moving to the Premier League with Chelsea.

After leaving Stamford Bridge in 2015 he returned to Germany with Wolfsburg where he won the DFB-Pokal. Schurrle played in a total of 373 competitive matches at club level, scored 86 goals and set up a further 51.

Schurrle has won 57 caps for Germany in which he scored 22 goals. His biggest moment came when he set up Mario Gotze for the World Cup winning goal in the 2014 final against Argentina.

 

https://www.espn.com/soccer/germany-ger/story/4139002/germany-world-cup-winner-schurrle-retires-at-29

[Bashir]

dafuq.. E o Sporting aqui tão perto.

[Fajo]

Ainda ontem vi que tinha rescindido com o Dortmund, não sabia é que era para terminar a carreira. É pena, fez uma boa carreira mas deve estar farto da pressão do futebol.

[JGabriel]

Citação de Bashir, há 46 minutos:

dafuq.. E o Sporting aqui tão perto.

Se está farto da pressão de jogador de futebol e não tem prazer em jogar não era no Sporting que isso ia melhorar 😁

[infinito]

Um dos jogadores mais inteligentes que vi jogar.

[ComiC]

Acima dele só o pirlorim

[Pistolas]

Citação de Bashir, há 9 horas:

dafuq.. E o Sporting aqui tão perto.

Mais uma razão para se retirar.

[Fajo]

Citação de infinito, há 6 horas:

Um dos jogadores mais inteligentes que vi jogar.

Está vivo!! 😎

[Immobile]

Citação de Fajo, há 35 minutos:

Está vivo!! 😎

Claro, não é por se reformar, que o Schurrle morre 

[IlidioMA]

os alemães reformam-se cedo. Será uma cena cultural?

[Plagio o Original]

Citação de IlidioMA, há 4 minutos:

os alemães reformam-se cedo. Será uma cena cultural?

Têm escravos portugueses a trabalhar até aos 70 bro

[Vaart10]

Citação de Fajo, há 11 horas:

Está vivo!! 😎

Bastou saber que o JJ ia regressar.

[.Aimar]

Citação de Plagio o Original, há 28 minutos:

Têm escravos portugueses a trabalhar até aos 70 bro

O ano passado assisti a uma palestra cujo orador trabalhou durante vários anos na Alemanha. O tipo a meio da palastra lançou a piada de que se alguém ligar para uma empresa alemã depois das 17h, quem atende é o estagiário português.

A verdade é que os alemães têm a fama de serem muito trabalhadores, mas a realidade é que são muito mais produtivos do que nós. 

[challenger]

Citação de Pedro_Y2J, há 1 hora:

O ano passado assisti a uma palestra cujo orador trabalhou durante vários anos na Alemanha. O tipo a meio da palastra lançou a piada de que se alguém ligar para uma empresa alemã depois das 17h, quem atende é o estagiário português.

A verdade é que os alemães têm a fama de serem muito trabalhadores, mas a realidade é que são muito mais produtivos do que nós. 

Então à sexta à tarde normalmente é para esquecer. 

[FabioK]

Se já não tem motivação nem alegria, faz bem. Ainda assim mais importante que retirar se era tentar perceber o que se passa para tomar esta decisão...  pode ser algo extensível à sua vida pessoal e aí convém ter algum cuidado, pois retirar se por si só não vai resolver nada

[Longineu]

Citação de FabioK, há 7 minutos:

Se já não tem motivação nem alegria, faz bem. Ainda assim mais importante que retirar se era tentar perceber o que se passa para tomar esta decisão...  pode ser algo extensível à sua vida pessoal e aí convém ter algum cuidado, pois retirar se por si só não vai resolver nada

Alguém traduziu o artigo original do Der Spiegel no reddit:

Former international André Schürrle surprisingly ends his career at the age of 29. "The decision has matured in me for a long time," the 2014 World Champion explained in an interview with the SPIEGEL. The Ludwigshafen native tells here how he fared in the football business. He had often been lonely, just when "the depths were getting deeper and deeper and the highlights less and less". But the football industry did not allow him to show how he really felt: "You always have to play a certain role to survive in the business, otherwise you will lose your job and not get another one either". Schürrle terminated his contract with Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday. He was last on loan to Spartak Moscow.

This "Boller", over and over again. To this day they remember it, the neighbours of Schürrles in Ludwigshafen on the Rhine. At international matches, the door next door flew open during the half-time break, and little André ran into the garden and bounced his football against the wall of the house to copy the tricks he had just seen with the national players, with his heroes.

André Schürrle was seven or eight years old at the time. A light-blond, slim boy who only needed one toy to be happy: a ball.

15 years later in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It's the 113th minute of the World Cup final against Argentina. André Schürrle gets the ball, sprints off, crosses it in the middle, Mario Götze is there and chooses Germany as World Champion 2014.

German fans cheer in the Maracanã Stadium, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former German President Joachim Gauck. Millions of people celebrate on the fan miles in Germany. The voice of the TV commentator turns over: "Schürrles commitment, Schürrles running to the baseline made it possible."

The boy from Ludwigshafen - he himself is now a World Cup hero.

The name Schürrle became a prophecy. For the great international career, a new German super talent on the turf. Nobody suspected that everything would develop quite differently. How could they? Schürrle's rise was meteoric: he played in the Bundesliga for the first time at the age of just 18. Clubs have paid almost 100 million euros in transfers for him to date. Most recently, Schürrle was in the squad for Spartak Moscow, on loan from Borussia Dortmund.

When it recently became known that he was leaving Russia, there was speculation as to where the former national player would be drawn to. To China? To Turkey?

Not much was said about this from his surroundings. But now Schürrle himself has come forward with an answer that may surprise many. He says: "I'm quitting." At the age of 29 the former international is retiring from the football business.

It is a remarkable step, also because he is taking it well ahead of the time when professionals normally retire. "The decision has matured in me for a long time," he says.

His departure was sealed by an administrative act this week, Schürrle and Borussia Dortmund have agreed to terminate his contract. The parties have agreed to keep the details confidential. Now Schürrle no longer has to keep quiet about anything else in his life - for the first time.

About how he has been doing over the years, in the business where, according to him, "only performance counts on the pitch, where vulnerability and weakness must never exist at any time". In the business that made him very rich, but also often very lonely, just when "the depths became deeper and deeper and the highs less and less".

Since years can seldom be worked through in a few hours, the SPIEGEL was allowed to accompany André Schürrle over the past seven months. As a result of the corona, agreed meetings turned into telephone conversations in the meantime.

The first appointment was in Berlin, in December 2019, when André Schürrle is sitting in a pastel-colored velvet armchair in his loft-like apartment. The sky above the capital is grey and cloudy, with the Chancellery and the Reichstag in the distance. In the adjoining kitchen, his wife Anna, 32, is preparing porridge for their eight-month-old daughter Kaia.

Schürrle is wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, his red-blonde beard fuller than it was in World Cup times. He is on holiday from Spartak Moscow. Or rather what a holiday means for a professional. He has a daily training schedule. A GPS device transmits the data to the club. How he trains, when he trains, what he trains. It's all like an electronic anklet.

Schürrle is still reticent at first, partly because he is not sure at this point whether he really wants to stop. "To talk openly and honestly about things is impossible in my business and for me still uncomfortable.

It almost sounds apologetic. "You always have to play a certain role to survive in this business, or you'll lose your job and never get another one."

His stories become a journey through time that begins in Ludwigshafen. At the age of five he joins the local Ludwigshafen SC, the Bambini team. Later he is invited to sightings. It is the time when top clubs have to found junior performance centers. But a boarding school is not an option for the Schürrles and their son. They are a family that feeds on proximity. Even today André Schürrle still phones his parents and his five years older sister Sabrina almost daily.

At the age of 15 he commutes daily to FSV Mainz 05, and every day his mother Luise picks him up from school, often with a Tupperware tin of noodles on the passenger seat, and drives him to the train station. A train ride to the stadium on Bruchweg takes one and a half hours. Usually he is not home until around 10 pm. "It was exhausting, but exactly what I wanted," says Schürrle.

For three years he has been running the programme. School trips and parties don't exist for him. Instead, he has to "not eat junk", go to bed early and always have the next game in sight.

In 2009, at 18, he moved to Mainz. Under coach Thomas Tuchel, he plays his first Bundesliga match, against Leverkusen.

Schürrle in his velvet chair laughs softly. "I was so incredibly nervous," he remembers, almost touched by himself back then. "I remember how Tuchel took me aside and said: There are a few more spectators, but it's the same game."

Con men, mercenaries, agents: The story of a billion-dollar fraud

To the output Shortly afterwards Schürrle signs his first professional contract and leaves school after the twelfth grade. He quickly becomes a regular player, is ambitious, works hard on the offensive.

At the beginning he is shy in the dressing room, but then he becomes more and more a joker. After scoring goals, he likes to grab the corner flag as an air guitar and plays boy band with his fellow players Lewis Holtby and Ádám Szalai. A corresponding appearance of the "Bruchweg-Boys" in the ZDF-"Sportstudio" was something between cute and embarrassing.

Only a few weeks later Schürrle was called up to the national team. "At first I didn't dare to talk to Lahm oder Schweinsteiger", he says.

The market value of the then 20-year-old now equals the turnover of a medium-sized company. From now on, Schürrle is supported by his sports advisor Ingo Haspel and the man Schürrle trusts most: his father. The civil servant has taken leave of absence to flank his son. The experiment works out, even if sometimes the "shreds fly", as Joachim Schürrle calls it.

Shortly after André Schürrle moved from Mainz to Bayer Leverkusen for almost ten million euros, he drives up to his parents' house in a black Audi R8, a 600-horsepower sports car with a monthly leasing rate of more than 2,000 euros. His father is stunned, asks him if he is "completely crazy". "I told him to get his money's worth."

His son remembers this moment too: "I was happy then. But I've learned that the joy of a car like this lasts five hours at most."

Schürrles parents still live in the semi-detached house where André grew up. When he visits them, he sleeps in his old nursery.

Someone who knows him from childhood is Martin Röser, he plays in the second division of Karlsruher SC. "André is the most honest man", he says about Schürrle. "If he has a problem with you, he'll say so right to your face." Then Röser laughs. "But I hardly know anyone who can be so stubborn." In 2013 they were celebrating in Mykonos. "I was leaving in the morning, but Andre wanted to stay. I left and he walked back home across the island. Röser laughs again. "At one point I felt guilty and wanted to pick him up, but he didn't get in."

After that vacation Schürrle is in a completely different league. He's now playing for Chelsea FC, his "club of hearts". He feels he has reached the goal of his dreams. He would never have thought that one day he would be standing in a booth with the world stars Didier Drogba or Frank Lampard.

He moves into a luxury loft in London, high above the Thames. The following summer he travels to Rio with the national team. He had always regarded it as a kind of "nest", says Schürrle. "And it was a getaway from the rut that you have day after day at the club."

Those weeks in Brazil were "the hottest time of my life", Schürrle remembers. "Everything fit, the atmosphere in the team, the organization, the hotel right on the beach. In the end, in soccer, there are many small screws that have to fit together to be successful."

And then the title - blessing and curse at the same time.

After the World Cup Schürrle has 19 days off, then he has to go back to Chelsea. He experiences what older national players had warned him about: that the season after a World Cup is damn tough. Especially in English football, which has no winter break, where the national players play 60 games a year. "It's a brutal strain," says Schürrle.

A crow flies from the kitchen into the living room. Schürrle waves to his daughter, but he is in another world, lost in thought. "I was able to push myself for three or four weeks, but then I fell into the deepest hole there is," he confesses. "I didn't want to play football any more. I was completely finished." Schürrle shakes his head.

He learns one of the most important lessons: that there is no shortcut to maximum success. And that the road to the top is hard - but staying on top is even harder.

With Schürrle, who has never been seriously injured in his career until then, his body goes on strike for the first time. "It was as if everything was burning inside me. My game is determined by sprints. But I had no more strength in my thighs. It was like they caught fire."

He can't block out the pain. Neither in the game nor in practice. Jose Mourinho, his former coach, banished him to the bench. Schürrle: "On the one hand it's the maximum penalty if the coach loses faith in you, on the other hand you take a breath and don't run the risk of screwing up again."

Instead of getting some rest, Schürrle goes to the gym after practice. "There was always this: You gotta, you gotta, you gotta. I thought I just had to work through it."

The doctors can't find any real explanation for his muscular problems. The fact that they might have a mental component pushes Schürrle away. He even has a brain scan done, he's so convinced that only something physical is possible for his low form. "I was almost hoping there was something there, nothing bad of course, but something you can quickly put down."

During this time Schürrle also gets to feel the media wire brush. Many feel that Chelsea is out of his league. Articles about him carry lines like "the discarded world champion" or "world champion on the siding." Schürrle: "Among them were things I took to heart with a heavy heart. You're either a fool or a hero. There's nothing in between." "Fall seven times, stand up eight" tattooed on his left costal arch.

During this time he is not available to anyone, not even his family. "Back then he would have needed space to recover and process all this success," says his father. "I was sometimes like unconsciously worried because I noticed how he was suffering," says his mother.

After a year and a half Chelsea Schürrle repels. His next stop is VfL Wolfsburg. The club pays 32 million for him, making it the most expensive transfer in club history. "I wanted to prove that I was worth the investment," says Schürrle. When he has yet to score a goal in his second season after seven Bundesliga matchdays, his coach Dieter Hecking takes him to task in public: Schürrle has to "be better than what he has shown so far".

Back then, he first thought of "throwing everything away", says Schürrle. "And you know how it is: once you have opened the door to your thoughts, to what you really feel, it is also incredibly difficult to close it again and block everything out."

This time he's gonna get a mental coach. He goes through his games with the expert, tries to fathom with her, based on his posture, how he feels why in which moments.

At the same time, he gets rubbed off again in the media. But Schürrle overcomes his depression. He becomes the club's top scorer, leading the club to eighth place in the second half of the season. "There were those moments when I was completely in my flow, thinking I was the hottest guy on the field." They're the moments that you crave as a professional.

Public criticism turns back to praise. And the next transfer is coming up: Dortmund wants Schürrle. His father advises him to cancel, now that he has just arrived in Wolfsburg. But Schürrle is too driven by his own restlessness, the desire to play at the top of the game again.

Dortmund is then coached by Tuchel, his former coach in Mainz. What seems like good karma doesn't add up. Someone who accompanied Schürrle closely at the time says in retrospect: "André played good games, but there was no consistency. Yes, he was injured in the meantime, but he was basically not able to torture himself anymore. But one of the biggest problems was that he shut down every time he was criticized."

Schürrle's sister Sabrina says: "You could tell that he lost all ease and joy. I've said to him so often: "Turn your head off. But Andre is a total thinker."

Schürrle retreats, once again. Now and then he exchanged views with Mario Götze, the two World Cup heroes had similarly difficult times in Dortmund. How honest can you be there? Schürrle: "You can't really open up like that to a team-mate either. The risk is simply too big that you make yourself vulnerable.

Schürrle admits he's been hiding in Dortmund at times. "If things aren't going well at the club, and you play a big game, then you don't dare to run around town."

What would he have needed during that time? Schürrle thinks about it, then basically answers, "What's missing is that as a player you're asked what you need to perform."

December 2016 marks a turning point in his life as he meets Kazakh-born Anna Sharypova through mutual friends. The model initially experiences him as "cool, aloof and not very enthusiastic". Until one evening in a restaurant in Dortmund: "We sat there until four in the morning and just talked," says his wife of today. "Less about football, more about life and what it has to offer."

Schürrle opens up, confides in her how he feels, on the pitch, in the dressing room, away from the crowd. "Anna then helped me not always look for blame in others, but to keep my eyes on myself. ...at what's mine."

From now on, Schürrle's doubts as to whether football is still his home have increased. But he is also torn again and again whether he should attack again. "This social expectation has already depressed the fact that you can't really stop until you're in your mid-thirties," says Schürrle.

Although his contract runs until 2021, Schürrle's time in Dortmund ends in 2018, and after a stopover in Fulham BVB lends him to Spartak Moscow.

At the end of March this year, Schürrle will be sitting in a suite of a five-star hotel in Moscow. In the video call, he turns his cell phone to the window. Across the street, the towers of the Red Square rise up into the sky. It is an impressive view.

Schürrle has injured his ankle, so he hasn't played for weeks. Things were going well for him in Moscow before. On and off the pitch, Spartak fans like the German. Basically he has achieved again what he has fought for. But it still doesn't make him happy. His priorities have already changed too much for that. Schürrle counts the days until he can go home again.

In front of him on a table are numerous books. Schürrle wants to continue his education. He reads biographies of star investor Warren Buffett and Apple founder Steve Jobs. But he says that he would be truly inspired by the stories of people who create something out of misfortune, like in the book "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari".

Schürrle, the restless one, has now become above all a seeker. Recently he gets up at five in the morning to meditate, to reduce himself to himself and his thoughts.

Who am I? And what am I without football? These questions move him. "For I really have seen myself for a very long time only as a footballer," says Schürrle.

Once again he emphasises how privileged he is to be able to take time out in his search for a new identity. "All the money I've earned is an enormous relief," he says.

More than two months later, back in Berlin Schürrle opens the door in grey trousers and a wrinkled T-shirt. Thanks to Corona, the ball is at rest in Russia, too. For weeks now, he hasn't had to keep his body and head under control. He seems balanced, as if he is liberated.

For a short photo shoot it goes on the street. A vacationer from Bavaria recognizes him, asks him for a common selfie. Schürrle does not hesitate. The young man almost jumps with happiness.

Schürrle knows that there will be no big farewell office for him. His career will come to a quiet end. "That's perfectly fine with me," he says.

Back in his apartment, his wife and daughter come out of the bedroom. Kaia has just woken up. A few months ago she cried as soon as her mother left the room. Now, when she discovers her father, she beams and reaches out for him.

Those are the moments that count for Schürrle now. "I don't need any more applause," he says.

[FabioK]

So li a parte final mas se a nível familiar está tudo bem e ele está descansado com a sua decisão, já não é tão alarmante

[IlidioMA]

Citação de Plagio o Original, há 5 horas:

Têm escravos portugueses a trabalhar até aos 70 bro

falava, evidentemente, dos futebolistas. Assim de repente e sem puxar muito pela cabeça, Mertsacker, Lahm, Hitzlsperger agora o Schurro, tudo gente que se retirou dos relvados - aparentemente - muito cedo.

[SAS_Robben]

Citação de IlidioMA, há 12 minutos:

falava, evidentemente, dos futebolistas. Assim de repente e sem puxar muito pela cabeça, Mertsacker, Lahm, Hitzlsperger agora o Schurro, tudo gente que se retirou dos relvados - aparentemente - muito cedo.

O primeiro que me lembro foi o Deisler que deixou o futebol aos 27 por depressao e dificuldades com a pressão de ser futebolista.

Parece me que claramente na Alemanha existe uma mentalidade mais pratica sobre o tema, bastante apoiada na estabilidade social e financeira que o país proporciona .

Se o Enke tem tomado essa decisão se calhar ainda estava entre nós 

[ventura21]

Citação de Pedro_Y2J, há 5 horas:

O ano passado assisti a uma palestra cujo orador trabalhou durante vários anos na Alemanha. O tipo a meio da palastra lançou a piada de que se alguém ligar para uma empresa alemã depois das 17h, quem atende é o estagiário português.

A verdade é que os alemães têm a fama de serem muito trabalhadores, mas a realidade é que são muito mais produtivos do que nós. 

Claro que são mais produtivos, são dos países que menos horas trabalham. Eles tem uma média de 30h semanais enquanto nós andamos nas 36h

[Peplin]

Citação de ventura21, há 7 minutos:

Claro que são mais produtivos, são dos países que menos horas trabalham. Eles tem uma média de 30h semanais enquanto nós andamos nas 36h

Era bom, era. 39.3 horas para nós e 34.2 horas para os alemães.

http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableAction.do

[IlidioMA]

Citação de SAS_Robben, há 29 minutos:

O primeiro que me lembro foi o Deisler que deixou o futebol aos 27 por depressao e dificuldades com a pressão de ser futebolista.

Parece me que claramente na Alemanha existe uma mentalidade mais pratica sobre o tema, bastante apoiada na estabilidade social e financeira que o país proporciona .

Se o Enke tem tomado essa decisão se calhar ainda estava entre nós 

pois era algo assim que eu tb esta a deitar-me a adivinhar. Mas não conheço por dentro a cultura alemã, não podia ter certezas.

Mas que me parece evidente que na Alemanha há uma maior propensão para um futebolista chegar aos 31 e dizer "sabem que mais? já chega, está bom assim". Mesmo no caso de futebolistas de qualidade - não estamos a falar do Mawete Junior que chega aos 25 anos e se retira pq ng o contrata.

Já em Itália é comum um jogador andar até aos 38 anos. A cultura é completamente diferente. Será o tal desapego dos germânicos que se falou tanto no início da crise do COVID?

[.Aimar]

Citação de ventura21, há 14 minutos:

Claro que são mais produtivos, são dos países que menos horas trabalham. Eles tem uma média de 30h semanais enquanto nós andamos nas 36h

Por serem mais produtivos é que trabalham menos horas. O típico tuga passa metade do horário de trabalho a coçar a micose e a outra metade a olhar para o relógio. 

[doom_master]

Citação de Pedro_Y2J, há 24 minutos:

Por serem mais produtivos é que trabalham menos horas. O típico tuga passa metade do horário de trabalho a coçar a micose e a outra metade a olhar para o relógio. 

É ao contrário. O típico tuga trabalha horas a mais, o que é contra producente.

[Plagio o Original]

Citação de Pedro_Y2J, há 24 minutos:

Por serem mais produtivos é que trabalham menos horas. O típico tuga passa metade do horário de trabalho a coçar a micose e a outra metade a olhar para o relógio. 

Eu se trabalhasse para sair do trabalho às 17h, no dia a seguir tinha trabalho em cima até às 20h

Por isso tenho de engonhar sem fazer nada para sair a horas aceitáveis