Kelvin Leerdam (; born 24 June 1990) is a Surinamese professional footballer who last played as a right-back for Heracles Almelo and featured regularly for the Suriname national team.
Leerdam started his career at local Utrecht club USV Elinkwijk. Feyenoord followed the midfielder for many years and Leerdam eventually joined the Feyenoord youth academy in the season 2005–06.
Coming from an amateur side, Leerdam had a difficult start in the Feyenoord youth. The first two seasons he was mainly used as a substitute. Leerdam joined a successful generation in Feyenoord U17, where he had to compete with players like Leroy Fer, Georginio Wijnaldum and Kevin Wattamaleo for a place on the midfield. After two years, when other players took their chance on a higher level, Leerdam became a regular starter in the U19 team. Thanks to his hard work and dedication, Leerdam eventually made it to Feyenoord's first team squad as well. In January 2007, Leerdam was invited to the first team's training camp in Belek, Turkey, by Feyenoord manager Erwin Koeman. On 6 June 2008, Leerdam signed his first professional contract until 2011.
On 1 February 2009, Leerdam had a place in the starting line-up for the first time. When Giovanni van Bronckhorst got injured during the warm-up before the Eredivisie match against N.E.C., Leerdam replaced him as left-back. On 12 April 2009, Leerdam made his first and only goal for Feyenoord, in the home match against Heracles Almelo.
In the season 2009–10, Leerdam was candidate to leave Feyenoord on loan for SBV Excelsior. Because of the departure of the right-backs Theo Lucius, Serginho Greene and Dwight Tiendalli, Leerdam remained at Feyenoord and is mainly used as the stand-in for first team right-back Dani Fernández.
During the 2015–16 campaign, Leerdam was dropped by interim-manager Rob Maas for the foreseeable future after the full-back discredited Vitesse in a 2016 interview. Leerdam therefore, failed to feature again for Vitesse until the following campaign, when Rob Maas was replaced by Henk Fraser. On 31 March 2017, it was announced that Leerdam would leave Vitesse along with Arshak Koryan, Wouter Dronkers and Ewout Gouw at the end of their current deals in June 2017.
He played as Vitesse won the final of the KNVB Beker 2–0 against AZ Alkmaar on 30 April 2017 to lead the club, three-time runners up, to the title for the first time in its 125-year history.
On 10 November 2019, Leerdam scored the opening goal for Seattle in a 3–1 home win over Toronto FC in the 2019 MLS Cup Final, after his shot was deflected by Toronto defender Justin Morrow.
Leerdam decided to represent Suriname, the country of his birth, at the senior level. He was called up to the Suriname national team for the first time in November 2019. He made his debut on 24 March 2021 in a World Cup qualifier against the Cayman Islands. On 25 June 2021 Leerdam was called up to the Suriname squad for the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Feyenoord | 2008–09 | Eredivisie | 1 |
2009–10 | Eredivisie | 0 | |
2010–11 | Eredivisie | 3 | |
2011–12 | Eredivisie | 1 | |
2012–13 | Eredivisie | 0 | |
SBV Vitesse | 2013–14 | Eredivisie | 8 |
2014–15 | Eredivisie | 2 | |
2015–16 | Eredivisie | 1 | |
2016–17 | Eredivisie | 2 | |
Seattle Sounders FC | 2017 | Major League Soccer | 1 |
2018 | Major League Soccer | 0 | |
2019 | Major League Soccer | 6 | |
2020 | Major League Soccer | 3 | |
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Suriname | 0 !colspan=1 | |
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Seattle Sounders FC
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