Cedric Brunner ended his career a year ago. The former Schalke player recently closed a chapter that had accompanied him throughout his professional career. The Swiss player drew a line under his career after being without a club for six months following the end of his contract with S04 in the summer of 2024. The 31-year-old has finished with professional soccer, but he continues to share insights into his time as an active player on his Instagram account. Brunner also addresses serious topics. In a reel accompanied by sad music, he revealed to his more than 40,000 followers that he had regularly consumed alcohol throughout his career as a soccer player. “I wasn’t an alcoholic, but I found it kind of special that January 2026 was my first alcohol-free month in 14 years,” the former Schalke player confessed. During this time, he was a soccer player for twelve and a half years, ten of which were as a professional. He said he didn’t want to be celebrated for it and that his abstinence had nothing to do with the “Dry January” trend of giving up alcohol in the first month of the year. Brunner confessed that there were very serious motives behind it. “I needed this outlet. Once a week after a game, I needed to switch off, just forget and, as harsh as it sounds, numb myself,” said the former Swiss junior international. Brunner received a lot of encouragement for his video, including a like from his former S04 teammate Marius Müller.

Cedric Brunner played 86 Bundesliga games for Schalke 04 and Arminia Bielefeld

Brunner began his career at FC Zurich, where he played 104 times and won the Swiss Cup twice. In 2018, the right-back left his home country and moved to Germany to join Arminia Bielefeld. In four years, Brunner made 111 appearances for Arminia and celebrated promotion to the Bundesliga as second division champions in the 2019/20 season. He made 58 appearances for the East Westphalia club in the top flight before moving to FC Schalke in the summer of 2022.

In the 2022/23 season, he made 28 appearances in Schalke’s starting line-up, missing the remaining six games due to injury. He was unable to prevent the Royal Blues from being relegated back to the second division. After a year with Schalke in the lower division and a total of 47 appearances, Brunner was not offered a new contract.