Harry Kewell, Australia's first world-class footballer, will call time on his roller-coaster 18-year career when the A-League season ends next month, the 35-year-old said on Wednesday.
The Sydney-born former Leeds United, Liverpool and Galatasaray forward had signed a one-year deal with Melbourne Heart in a bid to play in a third World Cup finals, but has spent much of the 2013-14 season sidelined by injury.
"It's hard. It's a sport that I've only ever known," he told a media conference in Melbourne accompanied by his English wife and children.
"I started when I was four-years-old, I started professionally when I was 17, I've had a career of 18 years, it's all I've known.
"The way things panned out for me, I felt it was the right time, I could go out on my terms."
Voted Australia's greatest ever footballer by fans in 2012, Kewell shot to fame with a Premier League debut for Leeds in 1996 as a prodigiously talented 17-year-old and became his country's youngest international weeks later in a match against Chile.
A Champions League trophy with Liverpool and two World Cup appearances in 58 matches for the Socceroos were to follow a glittering 181-game stint for Leeds, but a succession of injuries over the last decade repeatedly curtailed his ambitions, frustrating the player and fans alike.
He shared in Liverpool's 2004-05 Champions League triumph, but lasted only 23 minutes before coming off injured after being named as a surprise starter in the final victory over AC Milan in Istanbul.
His role in the penalty shootout victory over West Ham to seal the FA Cup the following year was similarly ill-fated, another injury seeing him substituted after halftime.
"If you want to have a look at hindsight, I do sit there with my wife and close friends and wonder 'what if?'" said Kewell, dressed in a smart white shirt with matching sneakers.
"I feel like I can play the game, I understand the game. And I wonder if I didn't have those injuries, what could have been? But I believe that the path was set out for me and it's made me a better person."
Throughout his fitness battles, Kewell remained revered in Australia, helping the Socceroos qualify for the 2006 World Cup finals to break a 32-year drought since their maiden appearance.
He shrugged off injury to play a decisive role in Germany, scoring an equaliser against Croatia, one of 17 in his international career, putting the Socceroos into the knock-out round of 16 where they were beaten by eventual champions Italy.