Vivianne Miedema is again expected to score a lot this European Championship, preferably against Sweden on Saturday. Paradoxical issue: the top striker is not all that interested in scoring.
Vivianne Miedema can still remember all the boys crying. When she was 13 and 14 years old, she played for two years at VV de Weide from Hoogeveen, her birthplace, in a team with only boys. Once they had to play against FC Groningen, against a team with a few guys who later turned pro. But VV de Weide won 7-5. Miedema scored five times and provided two assists.
“The goalkeeper and the two central defenders were completely devastated,” she says on the website of her club Arsenal. “They had let the only girl on the field score five goals. That was a good feeling.’ She can still remember it all, except for one crucial element: ‘I don’t remember anything about the goals I scored.’
Hundreds of goals have been added since then. From VV de Weide she went to the women of Heerenveen. She was only 15, but in three years at the highest Dutch level she scored 83 goals, in 74 games.
At her current club Arsenal, where she has been playing since 2017, she shatters one record after another. She is the all-time top scorer in the Women’s Super League with 74 goals. In total, she scored 114 goals for the London club in five seasons. Once she made six in a match, which she recently repeated when the Netherlands played against Cyprus.
For the Orange she is now on 94 goals, in 111 international matches. She is only 25 years old. The magical limit of one hundred beckons, perhaps already at this European Championship, where – again – a lot is expected of her. For the tournament in her second home country – ‘actually my first at the moment’ – she is mentioned in all lists of potential top scorers. And now that the Netherlands is not doing well in the preparations, she is the point of reference and the mantra sounds: yes, but Miedema always scores.
Nothing special really
The only problem: scoring goals doesn’t really interest Miedema. The list of records may be impressive, but perhaps even longer is the number of statements in which she puts that performance into perspective.
‘Yes, I score goals. Nothing special really.’ †AD2016)
‘I don’t think I’m really that interested in scoring goals at all.’ †The Telegraph2019)
“Maybe it’s crazy to say… but having scored 100 goals for Arsenal doesn’t mean as much to me as it probably should.” (Arsenal.com, 2021)
Miedema is the top scorer, almost against will and thanks. She likes scoring goals, she says, but it’s certainly not like ‘real strikers’ who can never get enough. She has an average that those types are jealous of, but shrugs her shoulders laconically.
It’s not because she’s blasé, she’s not an arrogant type. The Drenthe is often described as moody and stiff, as often happens when someone comes from the north and is not so extroverted. It doesn’t stop her from caring for her teammates, especially when they’re young and new, and she’s averse to fanaticism.
She often shows that she is headstrong, not afraid to go against the grain. If everyone thinks she’s going to Barcelona, she’ll just extend her contract with Arsenal, like she did recently. The chances of success may be higher at other clubs, but if it works in London, it means more to her. Arsenal find them classy†
Certainly when the pressure is increased, she can put her heels in the sand. The more it gets talked about, the more she seems to need to push back. She may often hit, but that doesn’t mean she’s a goalscorer, does it?
Messed up in the striker position
Before she became known, Miedema did not play as a striker either. She landed on the spot like many goalkeepers get into the goal: because there was no one else, at her club and the Dutch national team. Because things didn’t go bad after that, she just stood there, without really liking the striker position. ‘I’m not 9’, she said earlier this year to OneFootball† “I’m something else.”
She used to always play as number 10, as a playmaker. Her father also played there, and her grandfather. She comes from a real football family. Her younger brother Lars was acquainted with professional football and now plays at a high amateur level. She spent whole days with him on the field in front of their house in Hoogeveen. As a 10 she still scored, often, but it was more of a nice side effect.
As a striker, she often stands with her back to the goal, while she really enjoys having the ball and seeing the field and her teammates in front of her. Helping others achieve goals makes her happy. Even as a striker, she still seeks that freedom as much as possible. When presented to her in 2019 that she is still a 10 in her head, she replied with a smile and meaning: “I’m a big football fan.” (Arseblog.news)
It also has to do with the tension. The older she gets, the more candid she says that she sometimes struggles with the pressure. The term is also used regularly when it comes to goals.
“As a striker you are judged on goals and if you don’t score, you are not good. (…) I also lost a bit of fun because of the pressure.’ †The Telegraph2019)
“We can always put all the pressure on me, but I think we have more players who can score a goal.” (After the Netherlands-Czech Republic (1-1), September 2021)
But also: ‘I just need that pressure. Ben striker, must score. (…) Fine. My character is with me. I’m not at all concerned.’ (AD, for the 2015 World Cup)
Mental Struggles
Before the World Cup in 2015, she still sounded tough, but once in Canada she almost succumbed. It was clear then that she was having a hard time. She told the BBC in the spring that she had even considered quitting. “I couldn’t handle the pressure, didn’t like football and said to my mother: I’m done with it.”
She kept going, but the mental struggles continued. in the sheet heroes she recently told that after winning the European Championship in 2017, she suffered from panic attacks. “On the football field, when I was at home, anywhere.”
After much hesitation, she went to a psychologist. Now it’s better. The pressure and panic attacks haven’t gone away, but she’s coping better. Though she’s still not a fan of the London Underground, the city where she lives with her partner Lisa Evans, former teammate and now football star at West Ham United. ‘But what do you want, I come from Hoogeveen, I had never been on a bus before, now I have to go to the underground…’
She consciously brings it all out because she wants to help others. By nature, she doesn’t like to be the center of attention, but she knows that she is an example, especially for young women. And if she wants to leave something behind, it’s this: whatever you do, just be yourself and accept who you are.
She can now be that herself at Arsenal. She has become more open off the field, she says. Her teammates see that she isn’t as surly as she appears. And also as a football player she can now lose her egg even more, because since the winter break she has been playing at her club in her favorite position, as number 10, behind the new purchase, the Swedish striker Stina Blackstenius, who she will face at the European Championship on Saturday. come.
‘Best number 9 and 10’
This has not been granted to her in the Netherlands so far. There are now other strikers, but they are young or inexperienced, even less good than Miedema. “There is no one to replace her if she doesn’t play for the Netherlands,” Ian Wright told the BBC. The former Arsenal attacker closely follows women’s football and is one of her biggest fans. “She is the best number 9 in the world and at the same time the best number 10.” But in the latter position, national coach Mark Parsons also has Daniëlle van de Donk, who was injured for a long time this year, and who also belongs to the world’s top.
‘I have talked about it quite a lot with the national coach, of course’, says Miedema. ‘In principle I can handle both positions. I am flexible and in the end he can make that choice.’
She’s doing her job. She is not afraid to score goals. Although she continues to do her best to relieve herself a bit. After the game against the Czech Republic in September, she pointed out a little bit grumpily that others could also score. Since then, the Netherlands has played thirteen games. She made nine herself, six of them against Cyprus, but her teammates scored 28.
‘It was about time, eh’, she says with a laugh. She’ll be the first to cheer if they go through with it. “We have a lot of other girls who can just kick a ball into the goal, I hope they show that again this summer.”
