Soccer goalkeeper Elija Wohlgemuth justified the end of his career at the age of just 21 with concerns about his health.
“I now have my second cruciate ligament tear in the same knee and it’s just a big problem in everyday life. I’ve been injured too often in the past few years,” he told “Sport1”. He had “repeatedly suffered setbacks” and now had to decide whether it would make sense for my body at some point”.
In the end he listened to the signs. “It’s getting more and more difficult because I could hardly move. I couldn’t sleep properly anymore, it wasn’t nice and wasn’t fun anymore,” said Wohlgemuth, who also didn’t play professionally at 1. FC Kaiserslautern due to the many injuries: “I could often only play with painkillers. But that was all coordinated with the club.”
He said to himself “that I would still like to move in 20 years. I didn’t want to keep destroying my body.” Now Wohlgemuth would like to study sports to become a teacher – if the body allows it: “I have to see what’s going on with my knee.”