Former Juventus and Napoli striker Gonzalo Higuain has called time on his playing career and says he wants to take a break from football altogether. The Argentine will hang up his boots after the MLS season ends and spoke about the pressures of playing at the highest level and why he wants to leave football:
These are moments impossible to forget. It’s one of the best feelings you can have as a player, to hear a stadium full of people shouting your name after a goal, I get goosebumps thinking about it today.
But the opposite can also happen. Not everything is beautiful in football. One day 60,000 people are shouting your name. Fifteen days later, they might be insulting you.
From bad moments you learn to mature, to grow and I personally regret nothing. I lost, many finals, Copa America and World Cup. And I had the bad luck to be the one who missed an important chance.
Those were tough times, but then a year later I was sold for €90m to Juve and I became the most expensive Argentinean ever. And that’s when you realise that nothing can distract you from your goal.
I’ve no intention of staying in football, at least in the short term. It’s world that becomes more and more toxic every day. I want to stay very far from sports. I want to open my mind and enjoy my family and my life.”
