Inter Milan’s Luis Figo officially announces retirement from football

Portugal legend Luis Figo has officially announced his retirement and will play his final game as a professional footballer this weekend when Inter Milan host Atalanta at the San Siro.

• It will bring down the curtain on a glorious career that has seen the 36-year-old win eight league titles, four national cup competitions, the Champions League and the now defunct European Cup Winners’ Cup.
• “May 31 2009, will be my last Sunday as a footballer,” he told the club’s official website. “I’m happy that my last Sunday as a footballer will be a party for me and for everyone at Inter after our fourth successive scudetto.
• “Winning was always the only real objective of my career. Winning everything that I could win, from practice matches in training to championships, cups and personal trophies.
• “And I have known only one road on the path to victory, that of sacrifice and hard work.
• “They taught me that as a young lad at Sporting (Lisbon) and everything I’ve achieved didn’t happen out of chance but due to many sacrifices.”
• Figo certainly has won a lot, starting with a Portuguese Cup with Sporting in 1995, the same year he moved on to Barcelona.
• There he won two La Liga titles, two Spanish King’s Cups and the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
• However, he then committed the most heinous of crimes in the eyes of the Barca faithful by quitting the club for their hated rivals Real Madrid in 2000 for a then world record transfer fee.
• Such was the chagrin of the Barca fans that two years later when the winger returned to the Nou Camp with Real, he had a pig’s head thrown at him.
• However, he achieved even more success at Real, winning two more titles and the Champions League.
• Five years after that move he came to Italy to join Inter and his four seasons with the club have seen them land the title in every one – although initially through default when in 2006 Juventus and AC Milan were penalised for match-fixing and the scudetto was awarded to Inter, who had finished third.
• He also achieved great personal success, winning the world player of the year title in 2001, a year after he was given the Ballon d’Or.
• He was named Portuguese player of the year six times but success escaped his country despite reaching the European Championship final on home soil in 2004, where they lost to Greece.
• A member of Portugal’s golden generation alongside Rui Costa and Joao Pinto, Figo won the European under-16 Championships and World under-20 Championships and made his debut for Sporting in the 1989-90 season.
• Two seasons later he was a regular first teamer and he went on to be a crucial player at all his clubs until the last couple of seasons when he could only command a bit part role at Inter – although he has forced his way back into Jose Mourinho’s side in the last couple of months.
• “Football has given me so much but most of all it has given me the opportunity to meet incredible people, lifelong friends,” he added.
• Figo, who is married to Swedish model Helen Svedin, earned a remarkable 127 caps for Portugal, scoring 32 goals while playing almost 800 club games.