Kevin Kampl once patrolled midfields in front of 40,000 fans in Leipzig, Dortmund and Leverkusen. These days he is more likely to be found bent over a row of tomato plants on a small finca outside Palma, Mallorca, where the 35-year-old Slovenian international has rebuilt a life that football could no longer hold together.
Kampl walked away from professional football in January, when he and RB Leipzig mutually agreed to terminate the contract that still had time to run. The decision followed the two heaviest blows of his life arriving within months of each other: the death of his older brother Seki, 51, of a heart attack on October 22, 2025, and the death of his father not long after.
"The last two and a half months have been the worst of my life," Kampl said in a January interview, describing daily visits to his brother's grave. "I still can't fully grasp it - we were inseparable."
Sport5 reports that Kampl and his family have since resettled on a Mallorca property where he grows watermelons, tomatoes, onions, peppers and olives, pressing some of the olives into his own oil. He shares the work with his wife, Vanessa, and their two sons.
"It was a devastated year - there's no other word to describe it," Kampl said, according to Sport5. "But the quiet and peace we have in Majorca helped us all tremendously."
The retirement closed an eight-and-a-half-year chapter at RB Leipzig that began in 2017, when the Saxony club paid a reported €20 million to sign him from Bayer Leverkusen. Kampl went on to make well over 200 appearances across all competitions, winning the DFB-Pokal in 2022 and 2023 and starting as Leipzig reached a Champions League semi-final.
He was given a guard-of-honour send-off before a Leipzig Bundesliga fixture against Bayern Munich, teammates and staff applauding a player who had become one of the dressing room's senior voices.
Kampl's path to the Bundesliga began at Leverkusen and a loan spell at Borussia Dortmund, before Leipzig made him a fixture of their midfield through domestic cup runs and European nights. Born in Solingen, Germany, he held dual citizenship but chose to represent Slovenia, winning 28 caps between 2012 and 2018 before stepping back from international duty.
He has not cut ties with the club entirely. "I always follow what Leipzig does, and I will continue to do so," he said.
For a player who spent a career chasing results, the finca offers something else: physical work that helps him switch off, and seasons that, unlike a league table, owe nothing to Saturday's scoreline.
