Long-serving Atletico Madrid player announces retirement after two-year injury hell | OneFootball

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

In the last few days, Vitolo has announced on the Actitud Constante podcast (via MD) that he is retiring from professional football at the age of 35. He cited his wretched injury problems as being the deciding factor.

“In the end I had such a bad time with the injuries that I said I wanted to disappear a little 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 leaving Atletico Madrid during the summer. He first joined Los Colchoneros back in 2017, although he was reduced to only 101 appearances, with his last in the red-and-white being during the 2020-21 season.