Top Facts about Thomas Vermaelen

Thomas was born and raised in Antwerp, the port city on Belgium’s River Scheldt. But gradually by finding his passion for football he learned that sometimes you’ve got to sacrifice the things you love, your comfort zone and to leave everything behind just to reach your goals.

So by the time he was 15, he had to move to Netherlands to join the Ajax academy in order to process his training years.

During his youth career, people noticed his undeniable talents in playing. Also by taking a close look at him in the stadium, the fact that Thomas is a focused player when he’s on the field got revealed to anyone.

The followings are top facts about Thomas Vermaelen:

In his entire career, Thomas Vermaelen suffered a lot of injuries in all kinds. Actually due to the mentioned fact, he missed a lot of playing opportunities.

Thomas Vermaelen’s Early Life

Thomas Vermaelen was born on 14 November 1985 to the Belgian parents Annemie Dingemans and Luc Vermaelen. His hometown is the city of Antwerp in Belgium.

There’s not really enough information regarding Thomas Vermaelen’s childhood. He has not officially stated anywhere whether he has siblings or not; therefore, we assume that the Vermaelen family is a small one and Thomas is the only child of his parents.

The reason behind why such details about this Belgian footballer is so limited, is the truth that Thomas is a rather shy and private type of person. He cares about privacy and would rather not talk about his personal life.

However, the first

fact about Thomas Vermaelen

is that he started his youth career with Germinal Ekeren at the young age of 6. Later on, this Belgian football club changed its name to

. Vermaelen spent nearly 10 years of training in this team and finally when he turned 15, Thomas moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands so he can join Ajax football club.

Thomas Vermaelen’s Club Career

In 2003, Thomas Vermaelen’s career at senior level also began with the Dutch club,

. He made his senior debut on 15 February 2004 in a fixture against

that resulted in a 0-2 away win.

Thomas' remarkable performance during his career in Ajax, brought numerous awards including the KNVB Cup as well as the Johan Cruyff Shield. Later in the middle of season 2008-2009, when Klaas-Jan Huntelaar left the club for

, Vermaelen became the official captain of the team.

Thomas Vermaelen finally said goodbye to Ajax by signing a four-year contract with the English club,

. He joined this team on 19 June 2009 for the initial fee of €10 million which would gradually rise to €12 million.

One more fact about Thomas Vermaelen is that along with the contributions of William Gallas, he formed Arsenal's central defense pairing. His jersey number during his time in Arsenal was 5.

On 15 August the same season, Thomas had his Premier League debut in a 1-6 away win over

. He also scored a goal in the 37th minute of the same match.

Arsenal fans gave the nickname "Verminator" and on the official website of the club, voted him as the Player of the Month not only once, but twice in a row.

During the first half of Arsenal's 2009-2010 season, Thomas Vermaelen became notable for being a goal-scoring defender. Considering the massive efforts he put into his work, he was nominated for the Belgian Sportsman of the year award and was also included in the PFA Team of the Season. He finally finished the season with 45 appearances which led to eight brilliant goals.

Also in 2010-2011 Emirates Cup, Thomas captained Arsenal against

. In the same season while he was on his international duty, an Achilles tendon injury kept him away from playing for a while. Before suffering the injury, Vermaelen was the one to start all the first three matches of Arsenal in that season.

He was meant to be in recovery for the rest of the season, but instead on 26 April after 8 months of staying away from the field, Thomas played a full 90-minute match against

.

Again on 8 May, Thomas along with his teammates travelled to

to play at the Britannia Stadium. However, he remained an unused substitute during the game. A week later, he appeared in a game against

, which ended with a 2-1 loss for Arsenal.

The next season, Thomas Vermaelen became the vice-captain of Arsenal, with Robin van Persie being named as the main captain. But once more on 6 September 2011, Thomas was ruled out for six weeks due to taking treatments for his Achilles tendon.

Only a month later, he extended his contract with Arsenal to four more years. Finally after a long time of not being able to play, Thomas Vermaelen came back to play in the League Cup against

. The fixture eventually turned out a 2-1 win for Arsenal.

On 1 November, he played in the first match of the UEFA Champions League against

. The game, however, ended 0-0.

Considering the impressive performance in the previous season, Thomas Vermaelen was officially announced as the new captain of Arsenal in 2012-2013 season. However, he couldn’t keep the great work going for this season too.

As a matter of fact, Thomas Vermaelen missed good opportunities in this season, while playing against various clubs; including

,

and

. As an example, on 1 December 2012 during the game against Bradford City, he missed the deciding penalty kick in Arsenal's shoot-out.

Somehow his strength and the power he had on the field had been diminished. Therefore, he left Arsenal’s manager, Arsene Wenger, with no choice but to drop him for the Champions League game against

, which was being held at the Allianz Arena stadium. Arsenal won that fixture 0-2 and yet it wasn’t enough to progress to the next round.

On 17 May 2014, Thomas Vermaelen won his only trophy with Arsenal as an unused substitute in the team’s 3–2 victory against

in the 2014 FA Cup Final.

On 9 August 2014,

and Arsenal agreed on a £15 million deal and finally Thomas left the team after signing a five-year contract with Barcelona. During his time in Arsenal, Thomas Vermaelen made 110 appearances and scored 13 goals on the whole.

But alas the first season didn’t do him any good because just like so many other times in his career, he was plagued with various injuries.

The injuries were serious enough to take Vermaelen out of the Barcelona’s squad for the match over

in the Champions League. In addition to the top

facts about Thomas Vermaelen

it also should be mentioned that he actually underwent a surgery for a recurring hamstring injury on 2 December 2014.

He was supposed to be in recovery for the period of four to six months. And finally on 23 May 2015, Thomas got ready to play for Barcelona against Deportivo de La Coruna in the final La Liga match of the season. He played for 63 minutes until being substituted for Douglas and the match gradually finished with a 2-2 draw.

But early in his second season in Barcelona, Thomas scored his first goal for the team on 29 August 2015 against

. After his remarkable appearance during the game, he was praised especially by Barcelona’s manager Luis Enrique. It looked like the second season was literally a fresh start for the Belgium footballer.

Also in the 2015 FIFA Club World Cup Final, in which Barcelona defeated

in Japan, Thomas came to the field in the very last minutes of the game as a substitute for the Argentine player, Javier Mascherano.

In the middle of summer 2016, Thomas Vermaelen was loaned by

from Barcelona on a one-year deal with an option to purchase. In the UEFA Champions League qualification play-off, he made his debut for the new club over

. But unfortunately after 41 minutes of playing, due to receiving two yellow card offences, he was sent off.

No matter in which club he would play, he was somehow cursed by getting injured time after time! Just as expected, his time in Roma was limited to only 607 minutes of playing due to the many injuries he suffered. And finally Thomas returned to Barcelona by the end of the season.

His first match after going back to Barcelona was against

which resulted in a 1-1 draw. He also played against Real Madrid where Barcelona accomplished a 3-0 victory over its main rival.

At last, Thomas’ departure from Barcelona became official on 27 July 2019. He signed a contract with J1 League side

that would last for two and a half years. In his current team, he's got the opportunity to work with some of the teammates from his previous teams, such as Lukas Podolski the former Arsenal player as well as Andres Iniesta and Sergi Samper the former Barcelona players.

Thomas Vermaelen’s International Career

Thomas Vermaelen began his international career at the youth level under-19. During his youth career, he participated in both the under-19 Championships and the 2007 under-21 European Championships.

Thomas Vermaelen’s international career at senior level started in 2006 and he has been playing for his country’s national team ever since. He had his senior debut in March 2006 against

.

Before playing in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers against

and

, he became the captain of the team on 8 October 2009. Nevertheless,

finished fourth in their group.

One more

fact about Thomas Vermaelen

is that he scored his first goal for Belgium national team on 14 November in a match against

.

Approaching the 2014 World Cup, he was also named in the Belgium's squad on 13 May 2014. But coming to the first match of the tournament, he stayed on the substitutes bench during the whole game against

. Anyway the fixture ended with a 2-1 win for Belgium.

However, for the second match, Vermaelen was the one to start the game against

. He played for 31 minutes straight but subsequently was taken off due to suffering an injury.

During his whole international career, he took part at some other tournaments like the 2008 Olympics, UEFA Euro 2016 and also the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Thomas Vermaelen’s Love Life

The news about Thomas Vermaelen dating Polly Parsons first became official in 2012. And by June 2017, the stunning couple had tied the knot!

Born on 15 February 1984, Polly Parsons is a television presenter as well as a glamour model from Bristol, UK. She first attended Sacred Heart Convent Primary School and later for high school, she moved to Redland High School for Girls.

Allegedly, Polly Parsons decided to study Art, Drama and Dance for which she received A-Levels. In addition to her educational background, it should be noted that she also has a Diploma in Performing Arts at Elmhurst School for Dance located in Camberley.

Speaking of her career, Polly Parsons co-presented “Fun Song Factory” as Paige along with Laura Hamilton. She has also appeared in several TV shows and sitcoms such as Genie in the House, Toonattik, and Disastrous for Nickelodeon. In addition to the facts about her career, Parsons has starred in “Don't Get Screwed” for BBC Three, and Meet the Parents on E4 TV channel. She used to be the presenter of The Real Hustle in 2012 on BBC Three.

Before Thomas Vermaelen, Parsons reportedly had dated Sid Owen, the EastEnders actor for about six years; as a matter of fact, Parsons and Owen got engaged in 2009 but later decided to separate in 2012. But it didn’t take Polly Parsons too long to meet Thomas Vermaelen, her beloved husband.

The lovely couple together have two sons, Ace and Raff, who is also the younger one.

Thomas Vermaelen’s Social Media

Obviously just like so many other people using social media platforms as an opportunity to speak their minds and to communicate with a wide audience around the world, Thomas Vermaelen has not rejected to be a part of this community.

In addition to the facts about Thomas Vermaelen, he actually has active accounts in three of the most popular websites known among people. He's got more than 1.9 million followers on his Instagram page (

) and over 1.3 million followers on his Twitter account (

). He also has a Facebook account (

) as well for the fans to reach and follow.

Thomas Vermaelen’s social media

mostly talks about his career; so basically the theme is pretty much based on football and only football. Coming to his personal life, Thomas prefers to keep everything all private. But if you keep scrolling down, you might occasionally see a photo or two of his family.

As a matter of fact on Polly Parsons’ birthday, Thomas posted a picture of his beautiful wife and wished her the best in her life. In that picture, they were both on vacation but the location hadn’t been stated.

More Facts about Thomas Vermaelen

• Birth date:

  14 November 1985

• Birth place:

  Antwerp, Belgium

• Zodiac sign:

  Scorpio

• Height:

  1.83 m

• Weight:

  75 kg

• Positions:

  center-back, left-back

• Preferred foot:

  left

Thomas Vermaelen, the 35-year-old professional footballer, holds a Belgian nationality. His mother’s name is Annemie Dingemans and his father is called Luc Vermaelen. Despite the fact about Thomas Vermaelen that he was born in a Christian family, he introduces himself as a non-religious person.

He might be surrounded by the crazy world of football, but when it comes to family he knows his priorities. In point of fact, Thomas is truly attached to his cute little sons.

He is a serious player when the game is on, but afterwards he’s warm and friendly. Thomas wears the jersey with the number 4 on it.

But unfortunately,

Thomas Vermaelen’s body measurements

have not been disclosed yet.

Thomas Vermaelen’s Net Worth and Salary

Thomas Vermaelen’s net worth

is the estimated number of $6 million, considering all of his personal properties and his income. In 2018, he had been receiving an annual salary of £4 million from his previous club, Barcelona. He also used to recieve the weekly wage of £80,000 from this club.

Obviously by joining Barcelona, the Belgian footballer had his income boosted in the flash of an eye. But as of 2021, there’s no evidence proving any kind of change in

Thomas Vermaelen’s salary

.

As a professional player, football is the main source of Thomas Vermaelen’s income. Apparently, he is not linked with any kind of endorsing brands or companies.

To mention his properties, it is also noteworthy to say that Thomas Vermaelen owns an Audi car as well as a Nissan Figaro that is worth $30.000.

In 2017,

Thomas Vermaelen’s market value

price was recorded to be around $5 million.

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