Long-serving Atletico Madrid player announces retirement after two years of injury woes

The last two years have been hellish for Vitolo Machin, as he had not played a minute of football since the 2022-23 season (when he was on loan at Las Palmas). A succession of injury problems meant he was still unavailable for action, and now, the inevitable has happened.

In recent days, Vitolo announced on the podcast Actitud Constante (via MD) who retired from professional football at the age of 35. He cited his miserable injury problems as the deciding factor.

“In the end, I had such a bad time with the injuries that I said I wanted to get away from everyone and be with my family. I had three operations and it took nine or ten months to recover from each of them.

Vitolo had been a free agent after he left Atletico Madrid during the summer. He first joined Los Colchoneros in 2017, although he was reduced to just 101 appearances, with his last in the red and white during the 2020-21 season.