Dutch midfielder Kevin Strootman, who has been without a team since leaving Genoa this summer, today announced his retirement from competition on his social media profiles. “Career ends. Thank you football,” the player wrote, posting a black and white image with half of his face.
The 34-year-old Dutch midfielder, who played 46 matches with his national team, wore the jersey of Roma from 2013 to 2018 as well as those of Marseille, PSV Eindhoven, Sparta Rotterdam, Cagliari and finally Genoa . Many messages from Miralem Pjanic: “my top player”, to Radja Nainggolan: “Success brother… It was a pleasure to share many wars with you… and with you in the war there was above all a war won. see you soon… good luck in the near future”, wrote the Belgian. From Edin Dzeko to Alessandro Florenzi, from Toni Rudiger to Walter Sabatini, to tennis player Flavio Cobolli
His farewell to football this morning touched more than one. Especially those who had the opportunity to know it or play with it. “No, Kevin,” writes Walter Sabatini, who takes him to Italy for 16.5 million, plus a possible bonus of 3.5 million. Roma offered him, after 10 years, the number 6 jersey, which had belonged to Aldair, and Strootman demonstrated, from the first moment, that he deserved it. The Giallorossi club welcomed him with two hearts and a wolf, Dzeko wrote to him “Thank you for everything, I love you”, Borriello added: “Thank you” while Mertens, after a heart, wrote in Dutch: ” THANKS”. And then again: the heart of Florenzi, the legend of Kluivert, the tears of Zappacosta and Sabelli and the words of Perin: “What a career, what a player”. Dumfries writes to him: “Example.” The tennis player Cobolli, a great Roman player, wrote to him: “Thank you washing machine”, recalling the nickname given to him by Rudi Garcia given the way he transformed balls from dirty to clean. And then El Shaarawy, De Roon, Nainggolan and many others, all agree that today is still a sad day for football.
