\n<\/p>\n
Raheem Sterling came off the bench to make his Feyenoord debut and play his first competitive football since May 2025. <\/b><\/p>\n
The 31-year-old, who joined the Dutch side last week after leaving Chelsea by mutual consent, was brought on after 61 minutes with Feyenoord leading Telstar 2-1, which is how the game finished.<\/p>\n
Sterling’s previous appearance came on loan at Arsenal on the final day of the Premier League season last year.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t played for a little bit but I have been trying to keep fit, I am building one step at a time and trying to get to match fitness,” he told ESPN.<\/p>\n
Manager Robin van Persie moved his side’s training to Belgium last week to allow Sterling to gel with his new team-mates while waiting for a Dutch work permit to be granted.<\/p>\n
Feyenoord returned from Tubize – which is about 137km (85 miles) from Rotterdam – following Wednesday’s session and Sterling was able to make his debut on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“It was a great introduction,” he added. “The trip to Belgium was one for myself, a very good one to get integrated with the boys and know your team-mates. <\/p>\n
“I am here for a new experience, a new challenge. It’s now maintaining that consistency and reaching our targets.”<\/p>\n
Sterling also said he had not spoken to England boss Thomas Tuchel.<\/p>\n
The winger, who has also played for Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal, spent time discussing numerous options after leaving Chelsea.<\/p>\n
Sources told BBC Sport about 18 clubs in England and across Europe expressed an interest in him, before he decided to join Feyenoord.<\/p>\n
The 16-time Dutch champions are second in the Eredivisie table, 14 points behind league leaders PSV.<\/p>\n
Sterling has scored 20 goals in 82 international appearances for England but has not played for the Three Lions since 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Raheem Sterling came off the bench to make his Feyenoord debut and play his first competitive football since May 2025. The 31-year-old, who joined the Dutch side last week after leaving Chelsea by mutual consent, was brought on after 61 minutes with Feyenoord leading Telstar 2-1, which is how the game finished. Sterling’s previous appearance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}