Ilkay Gündogan announced his retirement from international football with Germany on Monday after captaining his nation at the European Championship earlier this summer.
The 33-year-old Barcelona midfielder has scored 19 goals in 82 appearances for his country and announced his decision via social media.
“After a few weeks of reflection, I have come to the conclusion that it is time to end my career with the national team,” He wrote.
“I look back with great pride on the 82 international caps I played for my home country, a figure I could never have dreamed of when I made my senior debut in 2011.
“The highlight was definitely the enormous honour of being able to lead the team as captain at the European Championships on home soil last summer. After all these years, we have finally managed to make our country proud again. I am very happy to have been able to contribute to that.”
“But even before the tournament I was feeling a certain amount of fatigue in my body and also in my head, which made me think. And the number of matches at club and national team level is not decreasing.”
“I will continue to be a supporter of this national team and I hope that we can continue this upward trend together and that nothing will stop us from being one of the main candidates for the title at the 2026 World Cup. We have a fantastic coach, a very strong squad and great team spirit.”
Gündogan's retirement follows that of Thomas Müller, who announced his retirement from international responsibilities after the Euro 2024 campaign in which Germany were eliminated by Spain in the quarter-finals.
That success followed a run of poor tournament success for one of the sport's most decorated nations, with a group-stage exit at the 2018 World Cup followed by a last-16 exit at the hands of England at Euro 2020, which will be played in 2021.
The future of Gündogan's club is up in the air as Barcelona struggle with record issues even after their 2-1 win to open the LaLiga season on Saturday.
According to Spanish media, Gündogan has expressed his desire to leave Barcelona before the end of the transfer window, just one year after making his move from Manchester City.
However, Barcelona manager Hansi Flick has said he is convinced he will remain at the club this season. Sources told ESPN that Gündogan will speak when the time is right, but did not rule anything out, despite insisting at the weekend that he would stay at the club.
ESPN's Sam Marsden contributed to this report.
