Al-Fateh defender Robin Kelder’s mother is cheering him on from the sidelines after Saudi homecoming

DHAHRAN: When 55-year-old Anita Maas stepped off the airplane in Dammam last month with her 21-year-old footballer son, Robin Kelder, it was like deja vu.

It was just as hot as she remembered when the family had lived there for three years nearly two decades ago.

That visit marked their return to the Kingdom since they left when Dhahran-born Kelder was 22 months old.

This season, he is leaving the Dutch Eredivisie side Groningen and joining Dhahran-based Saudi Pro League Club Al-Fateh.

Kelder’s multi-ethnic background famously has ties to the Netherlands, Indonesia, Curacao, and the place of his birth, Saudi Arabia.

The opportunity to play professionally in the Kingdom was presented to him serendipitously just a few months ago.

“Robin decided, ‘okay, for my personal development, this is the best thing to do.’ So he just decided he can either stay in his comfort zone, or he can step out of it and just develop even further than he expected,” his mother told Arab News.

Maas, who was born in the Netherlands and resides there once again, is excited for what is to come.

“My career was not very linear. I got a degree in industrial design engineering — which I never really did anything in that field — but I worked in information technology first in the Netherlands, then in Norway.

“And after some time I thought it would be nicer to have a profession with more human contact and I switched careers and became a technology teacher in an international school.”

About a year ago, she shifted gears after an illness and now works at the ticketing office of a local theater.

Currently an empty nester, Maas is exploring her way of expression by being a singer in local band “Little Wing,” whose name is inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s