(FILES) This file photo taken on December 3, 2016 shows West Ham United's Spanish defender Alvaro Arbeloa controlling the ball during the English Premier League football match between West Ham United and Arsenal at The London Stadium, in east London.
Spanish defender Alvaro Arbeloa, the world champion in 2010, announced on June 24, 2017 that he was dropping football in an interview with Sapnish sport newspaper Marca.  / AFP PHOTO / Justin TALLIS
(FILES) This file photo taken on December 3, 2016 shows West Ham United's Spanish defender Alvaro Arbeloa controlling the ball during the English Premier League football match between West Ham United Show more

Former Real Madrid and Liverpool defender Alvaro Arbeloa quits football



MADRID //  Spanish international defender Alvaro Arbeloa revealed he is quitting football despite the possibility of playing in China or the United States.

The 34-year-old former Real Madrid, Liverpool and West Ham United player told Spanish sports daily Marca he has lost his motivation.

"The time has come to say goodbye. I've decided to hang up my studs and quit football," Arbeloa, who won the World Cup and two European Championship titles with Spain, told the paper.

"Many encouraged me to continue because physically I can keep playing. But it was more a psychological question."

Capped 56 times for Spain, Arbeloa began his club career with Real Madrid.

He moved to England in 2007 where he played three seasons with Liverpool before returning to Real Madrid, winning the Primera Liga title and Uefa Champions League twice before moving to West Ham in August 2016.

The move to London proved an unhappy one and the Spaniard made just three appearances during a "complicated" season.

"It's something I try not to think too much about," he said. "At a professional level it wasn't an easy year and that also had repercussions on a personal level.

"For me football was a battle day after day, to be in competition and the option to continue playing in China or the United States now, when I think about it, it doesn't motivate me.

"The moment has come to say 'enough' because what is presented to me is not what I loved in football."

* Agence France-Presse

Electoral College Victory

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Dec 10, 2020: Staff party held by then-education secretary Gavin Williamson 

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German plea
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the German parliament that. Russia had erected a new wall across Europe. 

"It's not a Berlin Wall -- it is a Wall in central Europe between freedom and bondage and this Wall is growing bigger with every bomb" dropped on Ukraine, Zelenskyy told MPs.

Mr Zelenskyy was applauded by MPs in the Bundestag as he addressed Chancellor Olaf Scholz directly.

"Dear Mr Scholz, tear down this Wall," he said, evoking US President Ronald Reagan's 1987 appeal to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.


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