The football world will say goodbye to one of its biggest icons this summer with making the decision to retire from the sport after Euro 2024. The star is out of contract with the club after the current campaign wraps up, and he's decided to call time on his illustrious career rather than seek a new challenge elsewhere. At just 34 years old, and coming off the back of a solid season with Los Blancos, Kroos still clearly has plenty to offer and has retired while at the top of his game.
The decision is surprising, and gets the question: what other big stars walked away from the sport when they could have perhaps stuck it out a little longer? A list of the 15 best examples has been compiled below. They have also been ranked based on several different factors such as their impact on the sport, their pure footballing ability and how much they seemingly still had to offer. 14 best footballers who retired too early 1.
George Best 28 2. Zinedine Zidane 34 3. Michel Platini 32 4.
Marco van Basten 31 5. Eric Cantona 30 6. Toni Kroos 34 7.
Just Fontaine 28 8. Alan Shearer 29 (Internationally) 9. Patrick Kluivert 32 10.
Brian Laudrup 31 11. Thiago Alcantara 33 12. Sergio Aguero 33 13.
Pierluigi Casaraghi 28 14. Hidetoshi Nakata 29 15. Enock Mwepu 24 The Brighton and Hove Albion midfielder looked set to be yet another Seagulls star on the rise and ready for an exciting career.
However, at just 24 years of age, following the diagnosis of a hereditary heart condition, Mwepu was sadly forced.
