Football: end clap for the French Franck Ribéry

Frenchman Franck Ribéry won everything in 2013. REUTERS / Youssef Boudlal

Text by: Farid Achache Follow

3 mins

Franck Ribéry formalized Friday, October 21 the end of his professional career, at 39, due to persistent knee pain, in a video posted on social networks.

Vice-world champion in 2006, the native of Boulogne-sur-Mer, passed by Olympique de Marseille, especially shone at Bayern Munich.

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One of the most emblematic French footballers of the last two decades has decided to bow out.

“ 

 ,” Ribéry said, in four languages, on his Instagram account.

Pain in both knees forced him to retire from sport.

Franck Ribéry arrived to general surprise at Salernitana, in Italy, in the summer of 2021. He will have known seven professional clubs in three decades between Brest, Metz, Galatasaray, Marseille, Bayern Munich, Fiorentina and Salernitana.

Franck Ribéry started playing football at the age of six at FC Conti in Boulogne-sur-Mer.

At the age of two, he was the victim of a car accident which left scars on his face.

Participated in two World Cups

The French international (81 caps, 16 goals) wore the blue jersey from 2006 to 2014. He played in two World Cups, Germany in 2006 and South Africa in 2010. The French World Cup fiasco in the country of Nelson Mandela will stick to his skin during the following months.

Having become part of the France team after the departure of Zinédine Zidane, he made an appearance on the set of Téléfoot to ask " 

", in full competition.

The episode of the tricolor strike of which he was one of the leaders in Knysna, will earn him 3 matches of suspension and an image of "bad boy".

The episode of the Zahia affair (2010), when he and Karim Benzema are indicted for soliciting a minor prostitute, will not help his image in France.

Both players will however be released in 2014.

However, in the fall of 2011, Ribéry once again became an essential player with the France team.

The Bayern player is decisive in the qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup. Injured in the back, he however forfeited the Brazilian World Cup and announced his international retirement.

All of Franck Ribéry's extra-sporting setbacks have not tarnished his image across the Rhine, where he made the heyday of Bayern Munich.

Arrived in 2007, "Kaiser Franck" will pocket 23 major titles, including 9 German Championships (Bundesliga) and a Champions League in 2013, his year, twelve months after the disappointment in the final at home against Chelsea.

In particular, he achieved a quintuple by winning the Bundesliga, the German Cup, the Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup.

He is one of the most successful players in Bundesliga history.

Also in 2013, he finished in 3rd place for the Ballon d'Or, behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, after having long believed and campaigned for his own coronation.

With the Munich, he played 422 matches for 124 goals and 182 assists. 

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