Vivianne Miedema Profile

Dutch star's stellar CV includes a European Championship title and a PFA Player of the Year award.

Vivianne Miedema is a professional footballer who plays for Arsenal Women and the Dutch national women's team. In the past, she has played for Heerenveen and Bayern Munich.

Miedema is widely regarded as one of the best strikers in world football and was awarded the PFA Women's Players' Player of the Year prize in 2019. The following year, she was named Women's Player of the Year at the London Football Awards and by England's Football Writers' Association.

Miedema made the top 10 of The Guardian's 100 Best Female Footballers In The World in 2017 and 2019.

Debut for Heerenveen at just 15

Miedema signed her first professional contract for Heerenveen at the age of 14. She made her senior debut on September 2, 2011 against FC Utrecht aged 15.

In her debut season, she was the joint-second highest scorer in the Eredivisie with 10 goals in 17 matches, but Heerenveen were relegated nonetheless.

In 2012/13, Miedema scored 27 goals in 26 appearances in the BeNe League. The following season, she scored 41 in 26 to bag the top scorer's prize by a margin of 15 goals.

In June 2014, her move to Bayern Munich in the Frauen-Bundesliga was confirmed.

Immediate success at Bayern Munich

Miedema hit the ground running at her new club and was a major part of the Bayern Munich side which went unbeaten in the 2014/15 league season and won their first Frauen-Bundesliga title since 1976.

On October 5, 2014, Miedema scored her first two league goals for Bayern Munich in a 6-0 win over MSV Duisburg. She scored seven goals in 17 appearances in her first Bundesliga season and then followed that up with 14 in 22 in each of her next two.

Bayern Munich defended their Frauen-Bundesliga title in 2015/16, but were beaten to the title in 2016/17 by Wolfsburg.

Miedema celebrates 2015/16 Bundesliga glory with men's star Arjen Robben

Miedema was the top scorer in the 2016/17 UEFA Champions League with eight goals for Bayern Munich, who were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Paris Saint-Germain.

Miedema makes Arsenal move

In May 2017, Miedema moved to Arsenal Ladies ahead of the 2017/18 FA WSL season.

"Vivianne is a huge signing for this club and is seen as one of the best young strikers in the world. Attracting this level of talent to the club reflects our ambition and we are very excited to have Vivianne on board with us from the start of the 2017/18 season," manager Pedro Martinez Losa said.

Miedema scored the winning goal in a 1-0 win over Manchester City to clinch the 2017/18 FA WSL Cup, while she also scored four goals in 11 appearances as Arsenal finished third in the Women's Super League standings.

In 2018/19, Miedema started the season in fine form with a hat-trick in a 5-0 win over Liverpool. She finished the season as WSL top scorer with 22 goals and won the PFA Women's Players' Player of the Year prize as Arsenal won the league title for the first time since 2012.

She carried her fine form into the 2019/20 season. Although Arsenal lost their title to Chelsea, Miedema scored 16 goals in 14 appearances in the COVID-19-affected campaign. In the record 11-0 win over Bristol City, Miedema scored six goals and set up four.

On October 18, 2020, Miedema became the first player to score 50 FA WSL goals, overtaking Nikita Parris' previous record of 49 with a hat-trick in a 6-1 drubbing of Tottenham Hotspur. She has since traded the lead in the all-time goal standings with Manchester City's Ellen White.

Miedema has been hailed by some supporters as the 'GOAT' (greatest of all time).

"I really appreciate everything everyone is saying about me, the text messages, the support I got for breaking the record," she told The Guardian in 2020. "It feels really good, it feels like I'm achieving what I've wanted to achieve and that motivates me to be a better player than I am right now.

"Until a year ago I didn't even know what GOAT meant, I was like: 'It's not really nice for people to call me a goat. It's not the best animal to be'.

"And then Lisa (Evans, her team-mate and partner) had to explain what it actually meant. But, as I said, although I'm not too bothered by individual prizes or records, you feel appreciated and every single person or player would benefit from that."

Euro glory and records for the Netherlands

Miedema scored six goals against Montenegro, followed by eight against Kazakhstan in the 2013 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship qualification mini-tournament.

She then scored six goals en route to the Netherlands winning the 2014 UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship. Not only was Miedema the top scorer at the tournament by four goals, but she also won the UEFA Golden Player prize for the best player of the tournament.

Miedema was already a senior international by the time she starred at the Under-19 Championship, having made her debut on September 26, 2013 as an 84th-minute substitute for Lieke Martens in a 4-0 Women's World Cup qualification victory over Albania.

A mere month after her debut, she opened her account for the senior national team with a 16-minute hat-trick in a 7-0 thrashing of Portugal in another World Cup qualifier.

Miedema played a crucial role in steering the Netherlands to the 2015 World Cup, finishing as the top scorer in qualifying with 16 goals, but arrived at the tournament finals injured and struggled to replicate her qualification form. The Dutch were eliminated from the tournament by Japan, who beat them 2-1 in the last 16.

At the 2017 UEFA Women's European Championship, Miedema scored in the Netherlands' 3-0 semi-final win over England. She then scored twice in the final against Denmark to help her country to their first ever Euro title.

Miedema scores one of her two goals in the Euro 2017 final

On June 15, 2019, Miedema became the top scorer in the history of the Dutch women's national team by scoring in a 3-1 win over Cameroon at the Women's World Cup. That was her 60th goal for the team.

In the quarter-final against Italy, Miedema scored both goals in a 2-0 win and was player of the match. The Netherlands then beat Sweden 1-0 after extra time in the semi-finals to progress to their first ever FIFA Women's World Cup final, where they lost 2-0 to the United States.

Vivianne Miedema personal life

Miedema grew up supporting Feyenoord and idolising Robin van Persie. Together with her father and her younger brother, Lars, she would often travel around 200km to watch Feyenoord play.

She is in a relationship with Arsenal team-mate Lisa Evans.

Vivianne Miedema News

Sean Fisher
28 October 2021

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