Maarten Stekelenburg disputes in an interview with The Telegraph that he wouldn’t be a ‘training animal’. The 38-year-old goalkeeper of Ajax states that an image that he would not live for football was created based on ‘stories of one or two people’, who tell this as ‘truth’. “Then you have a stamp that you can no longer get rid of,” says Stekelenburg.
“I used to smoke a cigarette in the past,” admits the experienced closing post. “I stopped doing that nine years ago, but supposedly I smoke one pack a day. And after the game I drink a beer. But you know how it works: one beer a week, after ten people have told it, suddenly becomes a case a day. I wouldn’t be a training animal either. But I think I will be the first on the field and the last to get rid of it. “
“You can’t defend yourself against this and I don’t feel like it at all. I am not playing because I want to silence the critics, but because I have the best profession in the world and I am at Ajax ”, says Stekelenburg. After scoring abroad for AS Roma, Fulham, AS Monaco, Southampton and Everton, the 58-time Oranje-international returned to Ajax last summer. Last summer, Everton did not say whether Stekelenburg could stay for a long time, so he made the decision to leave and return to the Netherlands.
“If you then go back, you naturally hope for one club: Ajax. Fortunately, he also came forward. No, the contact only started after I left Everton. That was the order, ”says the closing post. Initially he was the stand-in André Onana, someone who in his words ‘can really belong to the best goalkeepers in the world’. On a movie night with his children, Stekelenburg received a call from trainer Erik ten Hag with the message that Onana had passed a positive doping test and would be suspended for a year.
“I mainly thought about the unexpected opportunity I would get. I was happy for myself, but of course also sympathized with André ”, says Stekelenburg, who was also allowed to report to the Dutch in the last international period. He calls it ‘great’ to have been with the Dutch national team again and would consider it a ‘reward’ if he gets a place in the European Championship selection. Before that, he still has a clear goal. “If you compete for three more prizes, you want to win three prizes. But we don’t look beyond the next game, because that has brought us to where we are now: in the position to harvest. ”