Napoli legend Marek Hamsik has replaced the football pitch with life on the farm after retiring from the beautiful game. The Slovakian midfielder spent 12 years at Napoli, making 520 appearances between 2007 and 2019, making him the Italian club’s record holder.
After spells with Dalian Professional, IFK Gothenburg and Trabzonspor, the 38-year-old will end his playing career in 2023. While taking up the role of assistant coach with the Slovak national team, he also embarked on an unexpected adventure away from football. The former Manchester United target now has his family based in Badin, near Hamsik’s birthplace of Banská Bystrica, where he runs a small farm at home with his wife Martina and their three children. The property includes a swimming pool and playground, and will add a chicken coop in April 2023.
In an interview with Sport24.sk, Hamsik’s spouse revealed details of his new hobby, explaining: “It’s a relatively new hobby for us. It all started on Easter in April 2023 when we ordered eggs to hatch, which then hatched and produced chicks. In the meantime, we managed to build a chicken coop.”
“The hut is custom-built with everything we need,” Hamsik said. “It’s like a hotel for your chickens, with built-in heating and ventilation, as well as an automatic door that opens in the morning, so you don’t have to get up to check on your chickens.
“We’re trying to make the chickens happy and we’re trying to make ourselves happy. We have 29 chickens at the moment and they’re laying about two dozen eggs a day. We have a lot of eggs and we’re already thinking about opening a shop,” joked the Naples legend.
But chickens aren’t the only creatures the family cares for. The Hamshiks also care for ferrets, turtles, guinea pigs, dogs, and cats at home.
Regarding her family’s passion for animals, Hamsik said: “In general, Martina was a big animal lover and she passed that on to the whole family. Hopefully we would have an animal shelter or a small zoo at home, but we already have one.”
Hamsik has had an outstanding career and much of his deep respect at Napoli stems from the dedication he showed to the club and its supporters during his prime when he was chased by major clubs.
Manchester United have been consistently linked with Hamsik, who admitted in 2018 that he could be considering a move to Old Trafford.
“This will definitely be the most difficult decision of my career,” Hamsik told Kicker when he fell just two goals short of Diego Maradona’s then-club record of 115 goals.
“Maybe everyone wants to play for these clubs, but I can’t answer that. I think Napoli is one of the top 10 teams in Europe in terms of gameplay and performance.”
“As a footballer, it’s difficult because you don’t know what’s going to happen next. I still have a contract left, so I don’t know what the future holds. I’m not thinking about leaving Napoli.”
