Ter Stegen vs Thibaut Courtois? Who is the better player?
Football is a sport where we witness ample comparisons between the players, irrespective of their age especially when 2 players of the same age compete in this industry, their personal success, stats, and international career becomes a topic of comparison. Even their luxurious purchases and lifestyle are also a topic for many.
Thibaut Courtois plays for the Belgian national football team and is currently playing with Real Madrid. He started his career with Genk at the age of 16 to establish himself as a professional goalkeeper and later on he joined the very famous clubs Chelsea and Atletico Madrid.
Talking about his play style, his wide range of skills makes him an important asset to the team and also a complete goalkeeper. His play style is found to be full of composure, and communication with teammates, and he also possesses an excellent positional sense.
Ter Stegen is considered one of the best and most promising goalkeepers of the current era. The German footballer plays for FC Barcelona and is widely known for his skill passing, reflexes, and ball-playing abilities. He has been often nicknamed ‘The Berlin Wall’ because of his ball control abilities and sharp reflexes.
1: Player Stats
The comparison between both players in this category is going to be very difficult as the number of matches, goals conceded, and clean sheets has almost negligible difference but a winner must be concluded during the comparison.
| Courtois | Ter Stegen | |
| Games | 444 | 440 |
| Goals Conceded | 398 | 397 |
| Clean Sheets | 188 | 183 |
By looking at the stats, we can say that both players have performed exceptionally well in their careers so far. We can see the difference in the number of matches where Courtois has played only 4 matches more than Stegen and this could be considered as one of the reasons that he has slightly better stats than Stegen.
We must appreciate Stegen for that he maintained his record so well that playing a few matches less didn’t affect his career. But this is a comparison, so the conclusion comes out that Courtios is slightly better than Stegen in terms of player stats. Although it does not mean Ter Stegen cannot get past as it is highly likely for him to get ahead in the future.
2: Titles
We cannot skip this category if we are comparing two great players. And especially when goalkeepers are compared it is mandatory to find out which goalkeeper has handled more crucial situations with ease and most importantly, we must find out how successful their efforts have been for themselves and their team.
Titles Won By Thibaut Courtois:
2x Premier League
3x La Liga
1x UEFA Champions League
1x UEFA Europa League
Belgian Pro League 2010
2x Copa del Rey
2x UEFA Super Cup
1x FA cup
2x Supercopa de España
2x FIFA Club World Cup 2018
Titles Won By Ter Stegen:
5x La Liga
5x Copa de España
2x Supercopa de España
UEFA Champions League 2014-15
UEFA Super Cup 2015
FIFA Club World Cup 2015
If we take a look at the number of titles both players have won over the years it is clearly visible that Courtois has won more titles than Stegen. It can’t be denied that Stegen has been performing well with his team but we can see that he could not win as many titles as Courtois.
3: Individual Honours
We have compared both goalkeepers on the basis of the titles they have one with their teams. Since we are comparing them on all the aspects we must compare the number of individual honors they have. So let’s take a look at the individual winnings of both players.
Courtois Individual Honors:
Belgian professional goalkeeper of the year 2011
Belgian Bronze Shoe 2011
3x La Liga Zamora Trophy
La Liga Goalkeeper of the Season
2x La Liga Player of the Month
Best Belgian player Abroad
2x Esm Team of the Year
4x UEFA Champions League team of the season
Belgian Sportsman of the Year
Premier League Golden gloves
FIFA World Cup Golden Glove
FIFA World Cup Fantasy team
FIFA World Cup Dream team
The Best FIFA Goalkeeper 2018
IFFHS WORLD’S BEST GOALKEEPER 2018 2022
IFFHS Men’s World Team
La Liga Team of the Season
FIFA FIFPro World XI 2022
Yashin Trophy 2022
Ter Stegen’s Individual Honors:
Kicker Goalkeeper of the Year 2011-12
2x UEFA Champions League Squad of the Season
UEFA Team of the Year 2018
4x ESM Team of the Year
La Liga Team of the Season
La Liga Zamora Trophy
2x Premi Barca Jugadors
2x Trofeo Aldo Rovira
We can clearly see that Courtois has more individual achievements than Stegen so we can conclude that Courtois is clearly the winner in this category.
4: International Stats
Courtois was first called up to the Belgium squad in October 2011 and made his debut in a friendly draw against France by 0-0 which made him the youngest goalkeeper to play for the Belgian national team. He also played all the matches of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers and he was finally named in the 2014 FIFA World Cup squad where Belgium was eliminated by Argentina in the quarter-finals.
Courtois was the first-choice goalkeeper of Belgium in the 23-man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and was also awarded the Golden Glove as the best goalkeeper of the tournament. He played his 100th match in the 2022 FIFA World Cup against Croatia and became the first Belgian goalkeeper to reach this mark.
Stegen on the other hand one his first international title in the UEFA European Under 17 Championship. He was rewarded for his performance and was included in Germany’s provisional squad for UEFA Euro 2012. In June 2015 he conceded 5 goals in Germany’s under-21 match against Portugal in the semi-final of the UEFA European under-21 Championship. He played a vital role in the 2017 FIFA Confederation Cup where he started all the matches for Germany and also played the final, winning the Man of the Match Award.
| Courtois | Ter Stegen | |
| Games | 102 | 36 |
| Goals Conceded | 79 | 44 |
| Clean Sheets | 51 | 11 |
We have seen the international stats of both players and it is visible that Courtois is ahead of Stegen with more matches, goals conceded, and clean sheets. This data is enough to conclude that Courtois is ahead of Stegen in international stats as well.
5: Personal Life
Thibaut Courtois belongs to a family where everyone is a sportsperson as his sister is a volleyball player and his parents also love to play volleyball. Even he loved playing volleyball when he was in his childhood phase. He is also a person who loves F1 and he participated in the 2021 F1 Virtual Grand Prix Championship as an Alfa Romeo driver. He had a baby girl with his girlfriend Marta Dominguez and gave birth to a daughter. They ended their relationship in 2017 when his girlfriend was pregnant with their son Nicolas who was born a month later. He married the Israeli model Mishel Gerzig and married her in 2022. He is a big-time lover of video and is also the ambassador of the NGO ‘Save the Children’.
Stegen is of Dutch descent through his father. Not much is known about his personal life but he married his long-time girlfriend Daniela Jehle in Sitges near Barcelona. The couple is a parent of a 4-year-old boy Ben. He said that he considers football a very important part of his life and has often considered football’s importance in his business and future investment.
Ter Stegen vs Thibaut Courtois? Who is a better player?
The goalkeepers we compared in this article have gained a lot of popularity by their performance and have impressed the audience on various instances. We compared them on the basis of different criterias and we got to know there was not much difference between them. It is very difficult to call our a winner out of the them. But just like other categories we found that Courtois is much better than Stegen.
It does not matter which player is better as both the players had a good career left and there is still a lot of room for more victories. Based on the above comparison we can conclude that Thibaut Courtois is better than Ter Stegen.
