Former Moroccan captain Medhi Benatia retires from football
Former Moroccan captain Medhi Benatia has retired from football, two years after leaving international football.
Now 34, the center-back recently played his club’s football in Turkey for Super Lig team Fatih Karagumruk.
During a 14-year career that started in France, his native country, Benatia has represented some of the biggest clubs in the world and won four straight titles during stays in Germany and Italy.
He won two Bundesliga titles and a German Cup with Bayern Munich and three Serie A championships, two Italian Cups with Juventus, with whom he lost a Champions League final, in 2017.
He also played in the 2018 World Cup and four African Cups of Nations for Morocco, in which he made more than 60 appearances.
One of his two international goals sealed his country’s place at Russia 2018 as the Moroccan captain led the way by scoring in a decisive 2-0 qualifying victory in Côte d’Ivoire.
“This job has also allowed me to defend and represent my country, Morocco, with whom I have lived unforgettable moments, the various Nations Cups but especially the 2018 World Cup,” he said on Thursday. .
“From an early age, I had only one dream, to become a professional footballer,” Benatia wrote on social media as he announced his retirement.
“To get there, I had to force myself to work hard, make sacrifices, but above all set new goals for myself at every stage of my career.
“Thank God I had the chance to become a professional footballer but as they say in this profession, the hardest part is not to sign your first contract but to last over time.
“After more than 15 years of” good and loyal service “in football, having played in the most prestigious competitions, I have decided to end my career!”
Despite the expulsion from prestigious French football academy Clairefontaine with a year ahead of schedule, Benatia bounced back with impressive style – calling her dismissal from school ‘fair’ as well as ‘like an electric shock’.
Born just south of Paris to a Moroccan father and an Algerian mother, Benatia was in the books of Marseille, Lorient, Tours and Clermot in France, also played for Udinese and Roma, where he was named in the Serie A team for the 2013-14 season. , in Italy before ending his career in Qatar and Turkey.
“Throughout my career, I have met great people who have allowed me to build myself, that’s why I want to pay tribute to all the clubs I have been to”, he wrote before to list the 10.
“I want to thank everyone who has supported me all this time; my parents, my wife, my kids, my agent, my close friends and you who follow me. They say the end of something is always the start of another. ”
Benatia retired from international football in 2019, shortly after capturing Morocco at the Nations Cup in Egypt where the Atlas Lions lost on penalties to Benin in the round of 16.