Paes was born on May 14, 1998, in Nijmegen. That is also where he started playing football, at amateur club VV Union. In 2012, he joined the youth academy of NEC, but it was not there that he made his professional debut. FC Utrecht signed him in 2018, and in October of that year he made his first minutes in professional football in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie with Jong FC Utrecht away at RKC.
From the 2019/2020 season, Paes was the first-choice goalkeeper for the team from Utrecht. After nearly fifty matches for FC Utrecht, the keeper moved to the United States in early 2022, joining FC Dallas. At the club competing in the MLS Western Conference, Paes became the undisputed number one for almost four full seasons. He wore the Dallas club’s shirt 114 times. He missed the final matches of 2025 due to injury and an international duty.
Paes's international career is certainly worth highlighting. Because of his grandmother, the goalkeeper has Indonesian roots, and since his naturalisation in 2024 he has been eligible to play for the Indonesian national team. In his debut match against Saudi Arabia (1–1), Paes saved a penalty in the closing stages.
He now has ten international caps to his name, which has made him popular in Indonesia, very popular. And Paes notices that every day. The goalkeeper has thousands of followers on his social media channels, mainly from Asia: more than 100,000 on his own YouTube account, 2.3 million followers on Instagram, and two million on TikTok.
"Two days before my matches, I usually delete my social media apps. That’s when I really want to focus on the games," he said during the signing of his contract.
The goalkeeper will wear shirt number 26 in Amsterdam.
