Claudio Pizarro will not extend contract at Werder Bremen

At 38 years of age, Claudio Pizarro is saying goodbye to SV Werder Bremen.

On Sunday morning, Werder's sporting director, Frank Baumann, announced the Green-Whites won't be extending Pizarro's contract, which expires Friday. The Peruvian striker is the club's all-time top scorer, boasting 104 goals in the Bundesliga across three spells at the Weser-Stadion.

"We already signalled in mid-May that it would be very likely we wouldn't be extending his contract," Baumann said. "In talks with Claudio, we decided together to wait for the start of pre-season to announce the news. Due to the big competition in attack and the young talent we have, whose development we don't want to hinder, we decided to not extend Claudio's contract.

Baumann also spoke about a possible farewell for Pizarro, saying: "Claudio is a legend and fully deserves to get the best-possible farewell that a player at Werder can get - his own farewell game. Only a few Werder players have had this honour. After the end of his career, we'll discuss all the details with him."

Regarding Pizarro's career at Werder, Baumann declared: "Claudio has an unbelievable career behind him, with Bremen being his first destination in Europe and where he returned to twice. In all of his three stints here, he was an absolute fan favourite. His goals and attitude combined to making Werder successful in the last 17, 18 years, and contributed to enhancing the public's perception of the club."

Pizarro first joined Werder from Club Alianza Lima in 1999. He spent two years with the Green-Whites and moved to Bayern Munich in 2001 for the first of two spells at the Allianz Arena. He returned to the Weser-Stadion in 2008, on loan from Chelsea, and, after the transfer became permanent one year later, stayed in northern Germany until 2009. The third spell kicked off in 2015.