PHP can't read/receive response - php

Question

So what I am trying to do is receiving data about a player from the Steam API.
Basically, a player logs in via the Steam website and then gets redirected to a page of my website where data about the player is registered into the database.
It seems that the data about the player (which is being retrieved from the Steam API) is null (it cant be retrieved)
When I try to access the API in the browser, it works just fine.
Here is the code for registering the data:
$url = "http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamUser/GetPlayerSummaries/v0002/?key=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&steamids=". $matches[1];
$json_object = file_get_contents($url);
$json_decoded = json_decode($json_object);
foreach ($json_decoded->response->players as $player) {
$steamid = $player->steamid;
$name = $player->personaname;
$avatar = $player->avatar;
}
$hash = md5($steamid . time() . rand(1, 50));
$sql = $db->query("SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `steamid` = '" . $steamid . "'");
$row = $sql->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
if (count($row) == 0) {
$db->exec("INSERT INTO `users` (`hash`, `steamid`, `name`, `avatar`) VALUES ('" . $hash . "', '" . $steamid . "', " . $db->quote($name) . ", '" . $avatar . "')");
} else {
$db->exec("UPDATE `users` SET `hash` = '" . $hash . "', `name` = " . $db->quote($name) . ", `avatar` = '" . $avatar . "' WHERE `steamid` = '" . $steamid . "'");
}
If you want to try the API out your self, copy the $url and replace $matches[1] with this steam id: 76561198117114460
Thanks in advance,
Guus Huizen