Gravesen Retires

For­mer Dan­ish inter­na­tional and Real Madrid mid­fielder Thomas Gravesen announced his retire­ment on  Mon­day after months of being with­out a team.  For Gravesen, 32, it was the end after a tem­petu­ous end of 2008.

“I spent 12 fan­tas­tic sea­sons abroad and I played in four dif­fer­ent coun­tries for which I am very grate­ful for. I would do it all over again. But I’m 32 years old, 33 in March, so before age and health force my hand, I have opted to take the deci­sion to stop myself.”

This was the dark end to an oth­er­wise bril­liant career. In his 12 years, ¨The Oger¨ was one of the best play­ers to come out of Den­mark in the past decade. He was a fun­da­men­tal part of Morten Olsen´s side that par­tic­i­pated in the 2002 World Cup as well as Euro2000 and 2004. He earned 66 caps in the process, prior to call­ing it quits inter­na­tion­ally back in 2006.

(Cour­tesy of China Daily)

He estab­lished his rep­u­ta­tion as a tough man in the mid­field with pin­point pass­ing. His time at Ever­ton estab­lished him as such through­out the Pre­mier­ship and in Europe, catch­ing the eye of Real Madrid. Then-president Flo­rentino looked at him as the ideal replace­ment for Claude Makélélé. It was a spot that for many year was vacant with Los Merengues and the com­par­isons brought him to Valde­be­bas in 2005. After a fairly good start, his rep­u­ta­tion as a hard­man began to emerge and over­shadow that of his skill­ful pass­ing. His fiery style of play was a pos­i­tive for a short period of time, but when he took it to the next level it was a detri­ment to his play as well as the team. After his spot in the start­ing lineup appeared to be as sta­ble as the coach­ing posi­tion at Los Blan­cos, he would even­tu­ally see the way out.

In the sum­mer of 2006, he left for Celtic and that was the begin­ning of the end for Gravesen. He was not very impres­sive to say the least. So in a last-ditch effort to save his career he was loaned out to the club where he saw the great­est suc­cess– Ever­ton. For many it was a mar­riage made in heaven, but that soon became dis­as­trous as well as he was demoted to the sec­ond team in what he con­sid­ered ¨the most embar­rass­ing moment of his career¨. On August 18, Gravesen and Celtic decided to ami­ca­bly part ways. It was spec­u­lated for months that Gravesen was going to be head­ing to one of the Dan­ish sides, but that never mate­ri­al­ized, so Mon­day came and his career went.