Former Real Madrid defender Pepe has announced his retirement from professional football.
The 41-year-old has brought an end to a playing career that spanned 23 years and saw him win 33 trophies.
The final game of his professional career was Portugal’s Euro 2024 quarter-final defeat to France.
Pepe began his career at Brazilian side Alagoano before joining Maritimo in 2001 and then Porto in 2004.
After three seasons at Porto, where he won seven trophies, he joined Real Madrid in 2007 where he would spend the next ten years of his career.
In 334 appearances for the Spanish side, he established himself as one of the most successful defenders in the club’s history, winning 15 trophies including three Champions Leagues and three La Liga titles.
After leaving Real Madrid in 2017, he spent a short period in Turkey with Besiktas before rejoining Porto in January 2019.
He was also a stalwart of the Portugal national team, scoring eight goals in 141 appearances during an international career that lasted 17 years.
(Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
The centre-back played in six of the seven games during Portugal’s European Championship triumph in 2016, winning the Player of the Match award for his performance in the final against France.
Pepe also played in four of Portugal’s five Euro 2024 games, helping his country reach the quarter-finals before losing to France on penalties.
He holds the record as the oldest player to ever appear in a European Championship tournament.
“Pepe was Portugal’s bedrock for almost two decades”
Analysis by Jacob Whitehead
Even geological eras have an end. Pepe has been Portugal’s bedrock for almost two decades, a scratching, impermeable presence who won 132 caps for his country, and was central to their first major trophy at Euro 2016.
The centre-back epitomised the type of defender which strikers hate to face – even if, early in his career, his aggression could go over the line.
But it has been over a decade since the worst of those indiscretions – and at 41, he will retire as one of Europe’s most decorated centre-backs.
Across four clubs – Maritimo, Porto, Real Madrid, and Besiktas – Pepe’s longevity saw him live through multiple evolutions of centre-back style.
He was both at home in the deep block of the mid-2000s, but also evolved into a defender capable of progressing play, teaching himself these skills in his mid-thirties, desperate to prolong his career into his fifth decade.
At this summer’s Euros, there were no signs his abilities had waned, at one point against France, in what turned out to be his final game, matching Marcus Thurman in a thrilling one-vs-one sprint.
Not everyone liked Pepe. Not everyone even respected him, despite his accolades being hard won, achieved despite a lack of overarching physical gifts. But everyone rated him – he deservedly retires as one of the 21st century’s defining defenders.
GO DEEPER
Pepe is Portugal’s ageless wonder – and older than a third of the nations at Euro 2024
(Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
