Germany star announces football career is over at 30 after ‘crying for ten minutes’

Germany and Borussia Dortmund defender Niklas Sule has confirmed that he will retire at the end of the season.

The centre-back was out of contract in the summer but has made the decision to hang up his boots after the final game of the 2025-26 Bundesliga campaign.

Getty

The news comes after Sule suffered a knee injury in Dortmund’s recent 2-1 defeat to the German’s former side Hoffenheim, a result that culminated in a 35th league title for Bayern Munich after they beat VfB Stuttgart the following day.

Sule was forced off after 42 minutes in the loss last month after suffering a suspected cruciate ligament injury.

While tests confirmed he’d avoid a serious knee issue, Sule, who has suffered two cruciate ligament injuries in his career, decided the enough was enough.

“I would like to announce that I will be ending my career this summer,” the towering 30-year-old told the Spielmacher podcast.

“What I felt when our team doctor did the drawer test in the dressing room in Hoffenheim, looked at the physio and shook his head, and the physio did it too and didn’t feel any resistance either – I went into the shower and cried for ten minutes.

“In that moment, I really thought: ‘It’s torn’.

“When I went for an MRI the next day and received the good news (that it wasn’t an ACL injury), it was one thousand per cent clear to me that it was over.

“I couldn’t imagine anything worse than looking forward to life – being independent, going on holiday, spending time with my children – only to then have to come to terms with my third cruciate ligament tear.”

Sule broke onto the scene with Hoffenheim in 2013 and spent four seasons in the senior side with the German giants, though missed the second half of the 2014-15 season having suffered the first one two cruciate ligament injuries.

He went on to sign for Bayern Munich in 2017 and won the Bundesliga with FC Hollywood for the first time in his debut campaign at the Allianz Arena.

However, Sule suffered a second serious knee injury during his time with Bayern as he sat out a substantial chunk of the 2019-20 campaign.

Even so, he departed Bayern for Dortmund in 2022 having won the Bundesliga five times and the Champions League once during his time in Bavaria.

And having started strongly at Dortmund, injuries would continue to plague Sule, who has started just 56 of a possible 134 league games since moving to the Westfalenstadion.

In addition, Sule won 49 caps for the Germany national team and was part of the side that won the 2017 Confederations Cup.