Amsterdam gives Marc-André ter Stegen an unusually personal stage for his Germany return on Thursday. The 34-year-old goalkeeper is set to play against the Netherlands in the city where he is spending the season on loan at Ajax from Barcelona, ending a 15-month absence from international football.
Ter Stegen last appeared for Germany in June 2025. Injuries that followed kept him out of the World Cup, but regular minutes with Ajax have restored his momentum and persuaded new Germany coach Jürgen Klopp to install him as the starting goalkeeper at the beginning of his tenure.
Quick facts
- Ter Stegen will return for Germany against the Netherlands in Amsterdam on Thursday.
- The 34-year-old is on loan at Ajax from Barcelona this season.
- His previous Germany appearance came in June 2025.
- Injuries subsequently ruled him out of the World Cup.
- Jürgen Klopp has selected him as Germany’s first-choice goalkeeper.
The setting has not been lost on Ter Stegen. Playing his first Germany match in more than a year at the home stadium of his temporary club is, he said, something he could scarcely have pictured.
“It is crazy, I have to say,” he said. “I did not imagine it happening like this.” He described every call-up as meaningful, adding that it remains special for him to be back with the national side.
His route back has included difficult stretches in rehabilitation. Ter Stegen acknowledged that successive injury setbacks brought moments of uncertainty, particularly when one recovery was followed by another problem.
“You start to question things and nothing feels right,” he said of that period. Yet he maintained that he never truly believed his playing career would not resume, citing the mentality with which he approaches setbacks.
Now fit again, he said he values his condition more keenly. The goalkeeper said he was pleased to have reached the point he had envisioned during recovery: healthy and able to compete consistently again.
The Neuer question
Ter Stegen’s elevation also drew attention to Manuel Neuer, the goalkeeper who occupied Germany’s No. 1 role for much of their overlapping international careers. Ter Stegen said Neuer had not contacted him to congratulate him on becoming the new first choice.
He noted that Neuer had become a father for the second time and offered his congratulations, while admitting he had not reached out himself. “That was my mistake,” Ter Stegen said.
The pair last met before the World Cup, Ter Stegen said. He declined to predict whether this will be Neuer’s final season, but praised the veteran’s current form and wished him a strong finish should he decide to retire.
“He is a legend of German football,” Ter Stegen said. “I have enormous respect for what he did for German football.”
For Germany, the Amsterdam fixture marks the first public step of a new order under Klopp. For Ter Stegen, it is also a return shaped by absence, recovery and a city that has become his present footballing home.
