Former Germany international centre-back Niklas Suele announced on Thursday he will retire at the end of the season aged 30 when his current contract with Borussia Dortmund expires.
Capped 49 times and a veteran of two World Cup campaigns, Suele also won the Champions League with Bayern Munich in 2020.
Suele was set to leave Dortmund as a free agent but said a knee injury in a match against former side Hoffenheim made him reconsider his playing future.
In a statement released by Dortmund on Thursday, Suele said he feared he had torn his ACL for a third time.
While he was later cleared of the injury, the defender said: “it was a thousand percent clear to me that it was over,” revealing he “I went to the shower and cried for 10 minutes.”
Suele won the Bundesliga five times and lifted two German Cups in addition to the 2020 Champions League title, all with Bayern.
His senior international career kicked off with a silver medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. He went on to play at the 2018 and 2022 World Cups as well as the 2020 Euros which were played in 2021.