Maarten Stekelenburg is a 28-year-old Dutch Born footballer (born 22 September 1982) who plays his professional football for Dutch Giants Ajax. Maarten Stekelenburg plays as a goal-keeper and stands at 1.97 meters (6 feet 5 and a half inches) and wears the number 1 shirt for the club.
Maarten Stekelenburg has represented the Netherlands on the international level and his great goalkeeping skills and brilliant displays for the Netherlands took them to the World Cup final in 2010 in South Africa.
Stekelenburg was with Ajax’s youth team from 1997 to 2002 breaking through into their senior team in 2002. He’s represented Ajax 191 times and has helped Ajax win the Eredivisie title twice once in 2003-04 and then in 2010-11.
He’s also won the KNVB Cup for Ajax in 2005-06, 2006-07, and 2009-10 and was voted Ajax’s Player of the year in 2008 and 2011. He started playing for the Netherlands in 2004 and replaced Edwin Van Der Sar as Netherland’s number one goalkeeper after Van Der Sar retired from international football.
Because of Stekelenburg’s great height, he has great command over his 6-yard box and claims set-pieces brilliantly he also has great reflexes easily putting him as one of the best European goal-keepers in the world at the moment.
He only conceded 6 goals in the FIFA world cup and 2 of them were from penalty kicks. A lot of major European clubs have been rumored to be interested in his services but he has declared his future to Ajax.
Appearances:
■ 191 games for Ajax
■ 40 games for Netherlands National Team on The International Level
■ *FIFA WORLD CUP Runner Up in 2010/Silver Medalist after losing to Spain 1 – 0 in the final in Extra Time
