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Former Italy striker Immobile retires from football after 17-year career

Immobile has retired from football
Immobile has retired from footballREUTERS / Daniele Mascolo

Former Italy and Lazio striker Ciro Immobile has ⁠retired from professional football, his club Paris FC said on Friday.

"Immobile expressed ‌his wish to devote most of his time ‌to his loved ones after ‌17 years as a professional," the French ‌club said in a statement.

The 36-year-old striker ‌joined Paris FC from Bologna in February and made 12 Ligue 1 appearances, ‌scoring twice.

He scored 306 goals in ⁠599 club ‌matches in all competitions, also netting 17 times ​in 57 appearances for Italy.

The forward was part of Italy's ​Euro-winning squad in 2020 and scored twice during the tournament, which concluded with victory ⁠over England in ​the final at Wembley in July 2021, with the tournament being postponed by a year because of the COVID-19 ‌pandemic.

Immobile enjoyed his greatest success during his eight seasons at Lazio, becoming the club's all-time leading scorer with 207 goals in 340 appearances. He won the Coppa Italia and two Italian Super Cups with the Rome-based club.

In 2020, he won the European Golden Shoe after ‌equalling Gonzalo Higuain's single-season league record ​of 36 Serie A goals, and ‌he finished as the league's leading scorer four times.

He also played for Italian clubs Juventus, Pescara, Genoa and Torino, Germany's Borussia Dortmund, Spain's Sevilla ⁠and Turkish ⁠side Besiktas.