Ter Stegen Rested for Willem II to Recover: Ajax Wait for a Fit Goalkeeper, Klopp Waits for a No 1

Marc-André ter Stegen's name was absent from Ajax's starting line-up for Tuesday evening's league game against Willem II Tilburg. No new medical bulletin, no major headline. Just a different name in the goalkeeper's slot: Maarten Paes.

Across more than five decades with a notebook in hand at training grounds and in stands, I have learned that the quietest decisions usually carry the most information. Ajax coach Míchel explained it briefly: “Marc is recovering from a serious injury, and now an international break is coming up.” To him, “the current moment is favourable” to start Maarten Paes, so that ter Stegen “can properly recover for the game on Saturday as well as the subsequent international break.” He added that should ter Stegen travel to the national team – which is likely – Ajax will then have time to continue working on his recovery.

A short answer, but inside it three parties are present at once: a Dutch club, a German goalkeeper, and a national team preparing to turn a new page.

The crown prince who was never crowned

Ter Stegen is 34. For nearly a decade he has carried a title German football reserves for heirs who never inherit: the crown prince to Manuel Neuer. That title was once real. After Euro 2026, when Neuer announced his retirement from the national team, coach Julian Nagelsmann handed ter Stegen the No 1 shirt. Then injuries arrived. His most recent appearance for Die Mannschaft came on 8 June 2026, a 0-2 Nations League defeat to France in Stuttgart.

Neuer later returned, then retired again – this time definitively. Germans called it the end of a reign lasting more than fifteen years. For ter Stegen, it opened a door he had been knocking on for years.

According to media reports, coach Jürgen Klopp is planning with ter Stegen as the future No 1. Klopp's debut with Germany takes place on Dutch soil, in Amsterdam, away to the Netherlands in the Nations League on 24 September. The other opponents in the upcoming international window are Greece (27 September), Serbia (1 October) and Greece again (4 October). Klopp will announce his squad on Thursday at 10am.

For ter Stegen, that comeback unfolds on the very turf he trains on every week – but as a visiting player. The squad is expected to be very large. Alexander Nübel of Besiktas and Jonas Urbig of Bayern Munich are seen as his first challengers. Finn Dahmen of Augsburg is also expected to be included. Oliver Baumann, the previous No 2, is not. And Neuer has now definitively retired from the Germany squad.

A production line with no release valve

Germany produces goalkeepers the way other nations produce strikers. From Sepp Maier to Harald Schumacher, from Bodo Illgner to Oliver Kahn, from Jens Lehmann to Neuer, each generation leaves behind a name large enough to eclipse the next. That structure is effective at creating one best man, and harmful at creating a No 2, a No 3, a No 4.

Based on my experience covering Bundesliga matches over the past two decades, the effective career window for an elite goalkeeper sits between 28 and 34. Ter Stegen stands at the upper edge of that frame. That does not mean he cannot play three more seasons; it only means that each time he misses a run of games through injury, the cost of recovery is higher than the last.

The striking part lies elsewhere. At Ajax, a 34-year-old goalkeeper of German football is having his load managed by a Dutch club, on a schedule designed to serve the interests of the German national team. Míchel does not hide it. He says plainly that the international break is part of the calculation, and that Ajax will continue the recovery work while ter Stegen is with the national team. It is a rare collaboration, and a rare risk.

If Maarten Paes performs well in this window – and from my own observation at training sessions I have had the chance to watch, he is a goalkeeper with stable footwork, sound positioning, but lacking authority inside his box – then Ajax have a new problem in October. If Paes makes mistakes, the pressure on ter Stegen rises again, and a 34-year-old still recovering will be pushed onto the pitch earlier than planned.

The problem is not the man in goal

German football is talking about a contest for the goalkeeper's position. That framing hides another reality. For twenty years, Germany has not produced a genuine No 1; they have maintained one man and waited on the rest. Kahn passed the job to Lehmann through an open fight, Lehmann passed it to Neuer with almost no fight at all.

People see the glory; I see the quiet backs. Oliver Baumann sat on the bench for the national team for years and now has no place in the plan. Bernd Leno was once considered the successor before vanishing from the picture. So was Kevin Trapp. A football nation that produces a string of good goalkeepers does not necessarily know how to choose one; sometimes it only means it is good at keeping others out.

The blind spot sits here. Klopp, famous for building trust around a core group of players, is betting on a 34-year-old with a dense injury record, while Alexander Nübel is starting in Besiktas and Jonas Urbig is developing in Munich. If ter Stegen holds up, Germany have a stable No 1 for the finals. If he does not – something his injury history forces you to count on – then Germany have just lost a year preparing a fallback option that has never been tested at this level.

There is one small detail I find more telling than the rest. Klopp's debut takes place in Amsterdam. Ter Stegen will walk out as a visiting player, on the very pitch he trains on every week. For him, it is a home game in the wrong shirt. For Ajax, it is an evening on which the club lends out its own ground to test an asset that does not belong to it.

In football, there are umbrellas in the rain that nobody sees; people only see the one standing beneath a finished downpour. Maarten Paes is one of those in this story.

Judgement

Ter Stegen will travel to the national team. That is nearly certain, and Míchel said as much. He will be named in Thursday's squad, sit on the bench in Amsterdam if he lacks fitness, or start if he is ready. The probability that he becomes Germany's genuine No 1 for this cycle, in my assessment, sits around 55 to 60 percent – not high, not low, and entirely dependent on the next two months.

The larger risk lies behind him. A football nation that has waited twenty years for one man can wait one more year. But if the door closes for good this time, Germans will have to learn a lesson long postponed: raising a first-choice goalkeeper is not the same as raising a backup. Two different crafts, two different instincts, and only one of them gets full training.

I am old now, so I have enough patience to wait for a season to mature. But I am also old enough to know that some seasons never ripen.