Mark van der Maarel


Mark van der Maarel, is a Dutch footballer who plays as a right-back for FC Utrecht of the Eredivisie. Born in Arnhem, he is of Indonesian descent through his mother, who is from Indonesia.

Club career

Born in Arnhem, Van der Maarel was in his youth an Argonaut, and after a spell in the Haarlem youth, he joined FC Utrecht in May 2008.
He made his debut on 22 August 2009 in a friendly against non-league side Elinkwijk. His first league match was on 20 September at ADO Den Haag, where he replaced the injured Sander Keller after 67 minutes. Due to injuries to regular right back and team captain Tim Cornelisse, he kept his place in the first team and made an impressive contribution to the best start to a season ever for FC Utrecht. In the 1–0 win against champions AZ he was voted Man of the Match.

International career

On 5 October, Van der Maarel was called up for Netherlands U21, for the European U21 Championship group 4 qualifiers at Finland and Poland. Here he also benefitted from injury problems: he replaced Feyenoord defender Kelvin Leerdam.