William Gallas Retires From Football

The former Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and France defender has quit football after the nearly a 20-year career. Gallas enjoyed 12 seasons in Premier League and won it twice in 2004-05 and 2005-06 with Chelsea.

“You tell yourself you can always continue but I think that today I can not take it any more,” the 37-year-old centre back told L’Equipe’s 21 channelin an interview to be aired later on Thursday, The Guardian informs.

William Gallas started his professional career at Caen in 1995 and then was transferred to Olympique Marseille in 1997.

Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri bought Gallas from Marseille in 2001 for £ 6.2 million. He chose the number 13 shirt because it was his postcode back where he lived in Marseille.

Under Ranieri, Gallas developed centre-back partnerships with Marcel Desailly and later with John Terry. His partnership with Terry included a run of 16 games without conceding a goal. He also played as a right-back at times. It was with Chelsea and under Ranieri where Gallas obtained his first international cap for France.

Gallas’s contract with Chelsea was due to expire in May 2007. He refused to sign a new contract with Chelsea on improved terms after saying the club did not offer him enough money.

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He helped Chelsea win two league titles under Jose Mourinho before he moved to Arsenal in 2006 in a deal that saw Ashley Cole move the other way.

William signed a four-year contract with Arsenal, where he took the number 10 shirt vacated by the recently retired Dennis Bergkamp. Gallas was confirmed as Arsenal captain on 9 August 2007, with Kolo Touré serving as vice-captain.

The Telegraph marks, that  the defender was a disruptive figure in north London and manager Arsene Wenger stripped him of the club’s captaincy after he publicly criticised his teammates.

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In November, Gallas gave an interview to the Associated Press in which he revealed tensions within the squad which were disruptive to team morale, and suggested that Arsenal’s younger players needed to show more courage if they were to be successful.

In 2010 Arsène Wenger announced that talks about Gallas’ future will only go until end of May and that if an agreement was not reached by then, he would most likely leave the club.

Gallas joined Tottenham in 2010 but was released, after a largely unsuccessful spell, in 2013, when he signed a one-year deal with Perth Glory in Australia’s A-League

Within the professional club career Gallas made 570 appearances and scored 34 goals. Also he has 84 apps with France and scored 5 goals.