One of the most eye-catching players of world football in the last decade and a talent in whom the Germans had high hopes fifteen years ago, officially ended his career before the New Year. In the spring, he signed for the second division Paderborn, played five games, and then decided he didn’t want to play anymore.”I would like to thank my family for their support, my mother and father first of all. Without them, many things would not be possible. Also, a big thank you to the people who supported me and enjoyed my games. They were the reason I am enjoyed what I was doing. Thanks to the coaches too, there weren’t many of them in my career,” Max Kruse wrote in his farewell at the end of December.##EDITORS_CHOICE##A month later, Max revealed in a short interview with the German media why he decided to say goodbye to football:”Football is no longer the sport I fell in love with. Everything is dictated, and it was never my lifestyle. It just annoys me. Football has become a job, it’s no longer fun,” began the experienced striker. “Today, everything is too neat, meticulous, every detail is taken care of. When I started, we were carefree. You put on your football boots, run two laps and play football. Now? Now you have to come to training an hour and a half early”.What did not particularly please him in recent years are the special regimes that athletes are on, starting with nutrition.”I’m tired of being told what to eat.”Kruse, as always, was honest about money. He went to Fenerbahce because of a lucrative contract worth 4,000,000 euros per season. On the other hand, he doesn’t hide that he chose the second division, Paderborn, because he expected fewer obligations and a more casual attitude towards ‘work’…”If a lucrative offer came from Saudi Arabia, I would probably go there. Why not? What binds me to Germany? Nothing but my wife.”At the age of 35, he doesn’t want to think about football, so he doesn’t plan to join the coaching ranks right now.”I can’t imagine myself as a coach now. It’s even worse. You have to be the first to come to work and the last to leave.”Kruse was never a fan of training, everything he did – he relied on pure talent. It is far from the typical German and the German way of life. People in the biggest clubs knew this and skilfully avoided him even when he was in his prime. Nevertheless, wearing the jerseys of relatively small teams, he had a double-digit goalscoring performance for as many as seven seasons.More than scoring a goal, he loved assisting, which is also shown by his performance when the line was drawn: 162 goals and 134 assists!He played for Werder, St. Pauli, Freiburg, Mönchengladbach, Wolfsburg…In his spare time, he played poker professionally, which is why the door to the German national team was forever closed to him. He liked to have a few rounds here and there, to gather beautiful women around him, to have a good time.##NAJAVA_MECA_7828749##Short and simple – born at the wrong time by modern sports standards.If he hadn’t, if he had lived in the fifties or sixties, they would probably have written books and made movies about him.
