Marco van Basten, former forward of Ajax and Milan, spoke on the decision to quit his career at 28.
“I was at the peak of my career, everything was going very well, and everything was fine. But suddenly I played my last match in 1993,” he told The Guardian.
“Everything collapsed. There was a lot of pain and problems. You could say that my entire international career got into five years. After a lot of problems with operations, I started to limp. I couldn’t do anything without pain.”
“I was really disabled, and doctors couldn’t help me. It was a bit scary,” he added.
“Everything moved from bad to worse. After going through a lot of surgeries and meeting with doctors from all over the world, I tried everything, but we couldn’t find a solution.”
“In 1996, there was a moment when I said to myself: “I have to get better”. We decided to have surgery. For an athlete, and I was still only 32, that was the worst decision. But I had to stop this pain.”
