The next Remco Evenepoel? Danish football prodigy set to pursue cycling career

Jeppe Corfitzen once looked destined for a career in professional football. The Danish winger had emerged as one of Lecce’s most promising young players in Italy, but three anterior cruciate ligament injuries and seven operations eventually forced him to abandon that ambition at just 21. He is now setting his sights on a different sport, hoping to turn cycling into his next professional career.

Corfitzen announced his retirement from elite football on social media last week, bringing an end to a prolonged battle with injuries that repeatedly interrupted his development. His next move is already taking shape: he intends to transition to cycling and pursue the same professional goal that Remco Evenepoel achieved after leaving football as a teenager.

“From the dream of playing professional soccer in Italy to a reality I never could have imagined,” Corfitzen wrote. “It wasn’t the ending I’d dreamed of, but sometimes life takes a different turn than you’d planned. This is just the beginning of a new story,” he added.

For Corfitzen, the decision follows years of rehabilitation and repeated attempts to return to football. His various absences add up to 1,112 days on the sidelines - more than three years. The figure underlines the extent to which injuries disrupted a career that had once appeared full of promise.

Corfitzen developed through the youth systems of FC Copenhagen and Lyngby in Denmark before moving to Italy in 2022. At Lecce, he quickly became part of an exciting group of young prospects alongside Patrick Dorgu, who has since joined Manchester United, and Medon Berisha, who established himself in Lecce’s first team.

Corfitzen made his first-team appearances in the Coppa Italia against Como in August and in Serie A against Napoli, but his progress soon stalled. A right-knee sprain was followed by a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in 2023. Further cruciate ligament injuries in 2024 and 2025 brought more lengthy absences.

After spending an extended period in Lecce undergoing treatment, Corfitzen announced his retirement from professional football. “After seven surgeries and a lot of pain, I had to say goodbye to elite football,” he explained. “Now I have a new dream and new goals: to become a professional cyclist one day.”

The comparison with Remco Evenepoel is an obvious one, although the circumstances behind their respective changes of sport are different. The Belgian left football in 2017 after his prospects at Anderlecht had changed and he had lost his enjoyment of the game. He subsequently became one of cycling’s leading riders, winning world, Olympic and European titles.

Evenepoel had also spent time with Dutch club PSV during his youth before returning to Belgium. His move into cycling showed how an athlete with a background in another sport could develop into a world-class rider, but Corfitzen faces the challenge of making that transition at a different stage of his life and after a serious history of knee injuries.