Dries Mertens announced on Sunday in a video having definitively hung up after a final experience in Galatasaray. The 38-year-old Belgian, legend of Napoli (2013-2022), will have marked the Italian club and his country, for which he has more than 100 selections.
A legend has been bowing. The Belgian Dries Mertens, whose contract with Galatasaray expired at the end of June, announced that he had ended his career at the age of 38.
“I stop football but I will put on my crampons one last time for you just for you,” he said in a video posted Sunday evening, where he addresses Marek Hamsik, his former teammate in Naples who will organize his jubilee on July 3. The former international (109 selections, 21 goals), a seventh most capped Belgian player, played his last match with the Red Devils in December 2022 during the World Cup in Qatar.
Three titles of champion gleaned from Türkiye, none in Naples
Mertens had recently fareweed in Galatasaray, where he had signed in the summer of 2022 after nine seasons at Napoli, a club of which he became the top scorer in all competitions (148 goals in 397 matches). With the Turkish club, he will write 25 goals in 136 matches.
Among other things, the second striker or winger won two Italian cups with Naples (2014, 2020) as well as three Turkish champion titles with Galatasaray in 2023, 2024 and 2025. He will never be crowned in the Italian championship, finishing second on three times (2016, 2018, 2019). The Belgian had also worn the jerseys of FC Utrecht (2009-11) and PSV Eindhoven (2011-13).
