Cardiff_CPT wrote:Hope he pulls through, still not that old by todays standards.
I always found it a bit weird how he just disappeared from the pundit scene completely. I think It was around the time duck-mouth Rio Ferdinand began talking his bollocks, maybe he thought "f**k this, it's becoming a circus, i'm retiring"
This is the reason he gave at the time.
Hansen announced at the start of the 2013-14 Premier League season that it was "time" for him to retire aged 59, but later down the line, he admitted that nerves played a huge part in his decision to leave. Initially, Hansen announced: "I’m retiring from Match of the Day at the end of the season. I will have been there for 22 years and will be 59, so it’s the right time for me."
The guys at the BBC know me and I said, ‘Look, this is categorical. I’m leaving and nothing will make me change my mind’. I am contracted to do the World Cup (2014 Brazil) and I will do that as it will be a good way to go out, but I have had a great run.
"I've been in football for 41 years and I’m going out right at the top, just as I did at Liverpool," he added. Hansen wanted to step down while operating at his peak, rather than delay his decision and potentially leave while in decline.
Hansen masked it well, but he admitted that he would still get nervous when going live on air, and despite the years of experience, it was actually getting worse towards the end. "There was no training, it was sink or swim," Hansen said in 2016. "I was lucky to work with a master, Des Lynam.
“After 22 years I kept on telling myself I wouldn’t get so nervous, but it got worse. That was one of the reasons I left. I was getting more nervous and I’d say: ‘What are you doing?’ The BBC were terrific, I loved the people and Match of the Day but I didn’t enjoy the nerves."
Hansen was part of an iconic "Match of the Day" team that saw him share the studio with presenter Gary Lineker and former Liverpool player Mark Lawrenson. Lineker still presents the show to this day, but Lawrenson has since left the BBC after being told by the broadcaster that the show was going in a "new direction".
Lineker adored working with Hansen and paid him the ultimate compliment by saying he was an inspiration for the future generation of pundits in the UK. "He was probably the first person that went down the more analytic route, a path now followed by so many," Lineker said in April 2023. "He was a brilliant pundit."