Stephan Lichtsteiner has decided to end his career in professional football.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Swiss had planned to represent Switzerland at the Euro 2020 finals for one last time.<\/p>\n
But the postponement caused by COVID-19 pandemic forced Lichtsteiner to make a drastic decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan would have been to retire after the European Championship in 2020,\u201d Lichtsteiner said in an interview published by the Swiss Football Association.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter UEFA\u2019s decision to postpone the European Championship to 2021, it became clear to me that the time had come and I didn\u2019t want to add another year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe length of a footballer\u2019s career is limited. I was allowed to play at a high level until I was 36. Now, it\u2019s time to take a new path. It was a cool time that I really enjoyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lichtsteiner earned 108 senior caps for Switzerland and competed at five major tournaments: Euro 2008, co-hosted by Switzerland and Austria, the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, and Euro 2016 and as captain at the 2018 World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery tournament was an incredible event,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always felt a tingling feeling. It was a shame we narrowly missed out on the quarter-finals in the last three tournaments, which were of a high level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re able to play more than 100 international matches, that makes you proud. Every single game was an honor. And each one felt like it was the first, in terms of nervousness!\u201d<\/p>\n
Lichtsteiner\u2019s most successful spell came in his seven years with Juventus, where he won seven Serie A titles in a row, lifted the Coppa Italia four times and twice reached the Champions League final.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to build a generation of winners and won 14 trophies in seven years. That was definitely the most formative and successful phase of my career. The downside were those two lost Champions League finals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lichtsteiner, who spent 2018-19 with Arsenal, is now planning for a career in coaching but is also considering a future \u201cin the economic sector\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am open and currently being inspired by various things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lichtsteiner played his final season in football with Augsburg, making 20 appearances as Heiko Herrlich\u2019s side finished 15th in the Bundesliga.<\/p>\n
Credit: Football Tribe Malaysia<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stephan Lichtsteiner has decided to end his career in professional football. The 36-year-old Swiss had planned to represent Switzerland at the Euro 2020 finals for one last time. But the postponement caused by COVID-19 pandemic forced Lichtsteiner to make a drastic decision. \u201cThe plan would have been to retire after the European Championship in 2020,\u201d Lichtsteiner said in an interview published by the Swiss Football Association. \u201cAfter UEFA\u2019s decision to postpone the European Championship to 2021, it became clear to me that the time had come and I didn\u2019t want to add another year. \u201cThe length of a footballer\u2019s career is limited. I was allowed to play at a high … Continue reading “Stephan Lichsteiner retires from football”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":23800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1639,1640],"tags":[558,250,2226],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23801,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23799\/revisions\/23801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}