Former Chelsea wonderkid Izzy Brown retires at age 26 after giving up on his "dream"
Izzy Brown, a former Chelsea prospect, declared his retirement from the game at the age of 26 after having two Achilles operations in less than four months.
Izzy Brown, once one of Chelsea's most promising young players, was forced to retire at the age of 26 after suffering two ruptures of his Achilles tendon.
The agile forward was a fixture for England's youth teams, and only months before joining Stamford Bridge, West Bromwich Albion gave him his senior debut when he was 16 years old, making him the second-youngest player in Premier League history.
Although Brown spent the bulk of his career on loan in the EFL, where he had periods with teams like Brighton, Leeds, and Sheffield Wednesday among others, he only made one senior appearance while playing for the Blues.
The 26-year-old left Chelsea at the end of his contract and signed with Preston North End the following summer. However, after enduring two Achilles surgeries in the span of three and a half months due to an injury he received just weeks after joining PNE, Brown has now decided to end his professional career.
The Athletic quoted Brown as saying: "We had a pre-season game against Celtic when I was at Preston and I felt some pain in my Achilles, but it wasn't too bad." Brown announced his retirement in an emotional social media post on Thursday afternoon. After a few days off, I returned for training and simply passed the football like I had countless times before when I heard a pop. Although nobody was near me, I assumed I had been kicked.
"It had broken. I underwent surgery, which went smoothly, but thereafter, we discovered a small gap in my Achilles. We pondered the possibility that it had not fully healed, but because it had been only two months, we gave it some time. I went out for dinner after that, and when I took a tiny step down, it snapped once more.
