With England hosting this years 2022 European Championship tournament, the growing number of fans in the Women’s game have been treated to a very entertaining spectacle – made even sweeter by the fact that manager Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses have been in fabulous form and having hammered Sweden 4-0 in the Bramall Lane hosted semi final, they have sailed through to the Wembley held final having only conceding a single goal from the five games so far.
With it being Germany up next in Sunday’s showpiece for England, as well as entertainment this year, there have also been some unexpected upsets as defending champions, the Netherlands, went out of the tournament at the quarter final stage – losing in stoppage time to France as they reached the semi final stage for the first time – the Dutch would have expected to travel further in the competition, especially having welcomed back Vivianne Miedema for the quarters after a bout of illness but it was not to be.
The prolific Arsenal striker would have expected to fire them to a second successive final, but there is no reason to doubt her talent or her goalscoring ability and speaking ahead of the tournament, former England legends Kelly Smith and Faye White sat down with Football Betting Site Betway to discuss who they would select to make up the greatest ever European Championship starting XI and in recognition of what is a relatively short career so far, the 26-year-old was highlighted by both of them for being just so clinical in front of the net, with her incredible games to goals ratio.
Miedema’s youth record for her country is phenomenal – in eleven U17 matches, she scored 22 goals – but her full senior record at international level reads 94 goals in 113 matches, and Miedema has been no slouch at club level either.
Her three year spell with SC Heerenveen saw her make 74 domestic league appearances, where she scored 83 times. She made her debut for them aged only 15-years-old (becoming the youngest player to ever play in the Eredivisie) and in her debut season, Miedema found the net ten times in 17 appearances, making her the second highest scoring player in the 2011/12 campaign despite her age. By the time she was 17-years-old, she was the league’s top scorer, a clear 15 goals ahead of her nearest rival.
Moving to German giants Bayern Munich in 2014, three years with them saw 78 domestic league appearances with 52 goals, and her current spell at Arsenal (she joined them back in 2017) has returned 89 Women’s Super League games, with 74 goals scored.
Miedema’s success so far during her career has not been restricted to trophies, medals and individual title wins, although she boasts two Bundesliga wins and two WSL wins, a Women’s Euro 2017 win, World Cup Runner up and awards like BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year and two Champions League top goalscorer gongs – numerous records have been set and/or broken.
My favourite record is most goal involvements in a single 90 minutes, where she notched up ten (six goals, four assists).
An incredible player who will no doubt remain in all time starting XI’s for a long time to come.
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