Portuguese Defender Pepe Announces Retirement From Football

Portuguese center-back, Kepler Laveran de Lima Ferreira, known as Pepe has announced that he’ll be bringing an end to his playing career with immediate effect.

Pepe, who played for Real Madrid and Porto, confirmed he was hanging up his boots in a 33-minute video posted to social media.

The Portuguese center-back, who received offers from Saudi Arabia and various other clubs, has ultimately chosen to conclude his professional football career after careful consideration.

“I want to thank God for giving me the wisdom to be able to continue my journey,” an emotional Pepe said in the video.

“I can’t help but also thank all the presidents who bet and believed in me to be able to perform my work. To all the employees of all the clubs I’ve been to, who are the soul and essence of the clubs and the national team.

“And I want to thank everyone in the background. I want to leave a thank you and a hug of gratitude for all of you. And thank you all very much.”

Pepe’s career as a footballer

Pepe bids farewell to football with 878 official games played for the four teams he has represented.

Pepe started in 2002 for Maritimo before moving to Porto two years later.

The center-back made 64 appearances for Maritimo before heading to Porto, where he made a total of 290 appearances in his two spells at the club. In between them, he played 334 games for Real Madrid and 52 games for Besiktas.

Born in Brazil but representing Portugal internationally, he retires after a remarkable career marked by 34 trophies, including three League titles with Madrid and the 2016 European Championship for Portugal.

The last game of Pepe’s career was on July 5th in Germany, in Portugal’s defeat to France in the quarter-finals of Euro 2024.

The defender leaves the Portuguese national team with 141 caps and eight goals and is the third most-capped player ever behind Cristiano Ronaldo (212) and Joao Moutinho (146).