Vivianne Miedema is scoring and creating more than any other player at the minute with six goals and six chances created taking her to the top of the charts.

https://twitter.com/FAWSL/status/1053698611312242688

Just 22, Vivianne Miedema has scored 152 goals in 172 games over the course of her short career.

Vivianne Miedema is one of Arsenal’s newest additions after moving to north London from
Bayern Munich in May 2017, but who is this player who’s proving that the female of the species is just as deadly as the male?

Full name Anna Margaretha Marina Astrid  “Vivianne” Miedema, she is already on the verge of becoming the Netherlands’ national team’s highest goalscorer. Despite only being 22, she has already found the back of the net 51 times in just 64 appearances, including four in six during last summer’s Euros.

So, who is this talented Dutch forward who scores goals for fun?

Background

Miedema was born in Hoogeveen, the Netherlands, in 1996 and signed for SC Heerenveen at 14. She made her debut at 15 and won top goalscorer in BeNe League for 2013/14 with 41 goals in 26 games.

In September 2013, the then-teenager made her senior debut for the Netherlands against Albania.

She went on to become top scorer at the 2014 UEFA u19 Championship and also collected the Golden Player award.

She’s now become one of his country’s integral players despite being just 22.

The forward spent three years at SC Heerenveen, scoring a whopping 78 goals in 69 appearances before moving on to Bayern Munich in June 2014. In 2014/15, Miedema’s Bayern side went unbeaten in the Bundesliga and won their first title since 1976.

She signed for Arsenal in May 2017.

Strengths

As you can probably tell, Miedema is a clinical goalscorer. She thrives with attacking football, which is why she came to Arsenal.

“I had some really good years a Bayern and I really enjoyed it, but I needed a new challenge and to be honest, I didn’t really want to stay in Germany,” she said.

“The way of playing wasn’t my style of play, so I wanted to try something new.

“If you saw Bayern we would often play with five at the back and defensive midfielders in front, which meant a lot of long balls forward and me trying to run in behind the opposition – I just wanted something different.”

At five-foot-nine, she’s pretty tall and quite strong, so is brilliant in the air as well as with the ball on the ground.

Her movement is fantastic and as long as she’s getting service, she’ll score. It’s like a sixth sense to her.

Weaknesses

Miedema’s only notable weakness is her lack of speed.

She’s more of an Olivier Giroud than Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang when it comes to pace but what she lacks she makes up for with skill in front of goal.

Role models

As women’s football gains a wider audience, Miedema is keen to set an example to the next generation and become a positive role model for all.

“No one really knew what was going on in women’s football,” she told the Guardian.

“Now you see young girls buying your T-shirts and that’s really nice. It’s a big step. It is weird. Instead of Arjen Robben, they have Miedema or [Lieke] Martens on the back of their jersey.

“It’s exploded since the Euros. Going on the street, everyone recognises you. Mostly I used to get stopped by real football fans but now it might be an old grandma who just watched the final.

“We need to set the standard. The younger girls are going to have a better time because of what we do now. Football is so big.

“You need to be honest – if you watch a women’s game from 10 years ago, I wouldn’t watch it. It just wasn’t good enough at that time,” she revealed. “But we are making the steps to make it good enough, to show the games, to attract people to come back to our stadiums.

“So many young girls are playing in the Netherlands. If you look at other countries, girls don’t get that chance. That is not fair. That won’t happen in men’s football. We need to develop the women’s game. It’s a right to play football.”

She continued, “Me playing at Bayern, Robben playing at Bayern, I guess that’s why they said it.

“But it’s so hard to compare yourself to that player.

“You just hope that in 10 years people will say: ‘I want to play like Jodie Taylor and Vivianne Miedema.’ That’s the step we need to make.”

Not only has the Dutch international impressed on the pitch, she’s been inspirational off it. Despite being just 22, she’s proven that she has her head screwed on when speaking about equal pay.

“It’s really important as we put the exact same effort into our national side as the men do,” she told the Guardian.

“I think you deserve the same. We are European champions. The men don’t even qualify for the World Cup, don’t qualify for the Euros. It’s fair to say we deserve as much money as them right now.

“All due respect but our men’s team make millions a year, way more than the Norwegian team. Our association is so rich and we hope we’ll get a better deal as well.”