OVIEDO, Spain.— The Spaniard Santi Cazorla, one of the most iconic footballers of his generation and a symbol of Real Oviedo, announced his retirement from professional football this Thursday at the age of 41, bringing an end to a successful career spanning more than two decades at the elite level.
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Through an emotional farewell video, the midfielder expressed that the time had come to close his career at the club where his story began.
“Now, when everything ends, when the boots are hung up and the noise turns into silence, everything fits. The end wasn’t just anywhere, it was at my home,” stated Cazorla.
The Asturian played his final season with Real Oviedo in the First Division, after having been one of the fundamental pieces in the club’s historic promotion a year earlier. During the campaign, he participated in 28 matches, six of them as a starter, although he lost prominence in the final stretch following the arrival of coach Guillermo Almada.
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After the team’s relegation to the Second Division was confirmed, Cazorla took several weeks to decide his future before officially announcing his retirement.
Trained in the Real Oviedo youth academy, Cazorla began his professional career in 2003 with Villarreal, the club with which he played 325 matches over two spells and established himself as one of the best midfielders in Spanish football.
He also defended the jerseys of Recreativo de Huelva, Málaga, and Arsenal, where he shone for six seasons in the Premier League and became one of the most beloved players by the London fans.
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With the Spanish national team, he was part of the historic generation that won the 2008 and 2012 European Championships. A serious ankle injury prevented him from playing in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the tournament in which Spain achieved its first world title.
Far from giving up, Cazorla starred in one of the most admired recoveries in football after remaining off the pitch for nearly two years due to multiple surgeries on his ankle.
In 2023 he returned to Real Oviedo, twenty years after his departure, signing a contract for the minimum wage and allocating part of the revenue from shirt sales to the club’s youth academy.
His return was decisive in bringing Oviedo back to the top flight of Spanish football after a 24-year absence. In the promotion season, he played 35 matches, scored five goals, provided five assists, and became one of the team’s great leaders.
With his retirement, Santi Cazorla puts an end to a career marked by talent, resilience, and loyalty to the colors of the club where it all began.
