Wales icon Aaron Ramsey retires from football

Aaron Ramsey has called time on his twenty year football career by announcing his retirement from the game aged 35.

Earning his first forays into senior football at Cardiff City, Ramsey spent eleven seasons at Arsenal before featuring at Juventus, Rangers and Nice.

A stint back at the Bluebirds, where he was also briefly caretaker manager, ended his time in Europe, with his final club being Mexican side UNAM.

Though born in Caerphilly and raised - footballing-wise - in Cardiff, Ramsey always brimmed with the kind of flair of a continental midfielder.

A gifted playmaker who knitted things together in the middle with a penchant for scoring to boot - something that supposedly seemed to align with the passing of celebrities.

Had he not been playing with arguably the greatest Welsh footballer of all-time in Gareth Bale, Ramsey would likely go down as the most talented of his generation.

Though there was far from any rivalry between the pair. Bale and Ramsey worked in tandem, giving Wales the added bit of magic that was so often needed to produce some of the most memorable footballing moments in its history.

Ramsey's career was always blighted by injury issues, likely stemming from a fibula-tibia break he received against Stoke City in 2010.

It would take ten months for him to return to action and, as he reflected on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football, the nature of the leg break riddled his career.

"The injury happened and then all kinds of things go through your mind. 'Are you going to play again? Walk again?'"

At the time, Arsene Wenger worried about how it would affect the young, developing Ramsey on a deeper level too.

"What is the most terrible thing for me is that a player like Ramsey starts his career with a double fracture operation - you never know what consequences it has on the physical side of the game and the psychological side of the game. It is just scandalous."

As it has happened, it is a testament to Ramsey's mental fortitude and technical quality that he will still go down as one of the finest players Wales has ever seen.

Twice voted Arsenal Player of the Season, he won the FA Cup three times during the Gunners' purple patch in the competition in the 2010s, including the winner in 2013/14 - arguably his best season at club level.

Thankfully for Ramsey, there were no injuries to worry him during two of Welsh football's most renowned campaigns: Euro 2016 and the 2022 World Cup.

In the Dragons' heroic run to the semi-final in France, he easily slotted in a five man midfield in UEFA's Team of the Tournament, alongside Dimitri Payet, Antoine Griezmann, Toni Kroos and Joe Allen.

The famous 3-1 victory against Belgium saw Ramsey assuming the role of creator-in-chief and bossing a midfield with an idyllic mixture of energy and elegance. It was no wonder that he was heavily linked with Luis Enrique's Barcelona around this time.

His Arsenal career ended a month prematurely due to a hamstring issue before joining Juventus on a free transfer, with his time in Italy again being plagued by recurrent availability issues.

He still popped up for his country, netting a crucial brace to seal a place at Euro 2020 and remaining at the heart of the midfield on the road to Qatar.

Qualification in 2022 was the culmination of over a decades worth of transformation for the men's team and wider infrastructure of Welsh football at large.

Manager Gary Speed set the wheels in motion and saw Ramsey as key to his vision of making Wales into a nation that could compete. So much so that he appointed him captain in 2011, saying he "thought it was best for the team and the future of the team."

Ramsey would eventually hand over the armband to Ashley Williams and Bale before taking on the role again under Craig Bellamy's stewardship. Chris Coleman, who made Williams captain, admitted that the then-21-year-old Ramsey had "felt the pressure" of the captaincy.

Most players may view such a decision as a setback, though Ramsey's progression and continued professionalism in spite of that were emblematic of the determination his playing career was built with.

Ramsey later recalled that in the immediate aftermath the qualification for the 2022 World Cup, Speed - who tragically took his own life in 2011 - was not far from his mind.

"With Gary and him having that dream of qualifying for the World Cup, and then to finally be able to do that, it was very emotional."

Even as Bellamy became head coach in 2024, Ramsey was central to his plans, deploying him as a false nine in his debut match against Turkey before giving him a cameo off the bench days later in a win over Montenegro - his final appearance in Welsh red.

An Aaron Ramsey in his prime would have thrived in Bellamy's possession-weighted principles, but by then the ship had unfortunately finally sailed.

"[From] an injury point of view, I wished that had never happened," Ramsey admitted on MNF, regarding his early double leg break.

"And I would have seen how I could have been if I'd been injury free throughout my career. What would that have looked like?

"But I'm proud of what I've done in my career to come back from that and to still get to the level. I am proud of that."

Nine club trophies, 86 caps and three major tournaments for Wales down the line, it is fair to say that Ramsey certainly still has plenty to treasure.

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