Like all the best strikers Vivianne Miedema cuts to the chase quickly. The conversation has turned to the Norwegian Football Association reaching an agreement to give equal pay to its male and female teams and why, even in a time of supposed enlightenment, that kind of progressive move rubbed a few people up the wrong way. “I don’t know,” Miedema says. “Their egos maybe.”
Women’s football is on the rise in the Netherlands but Miedema wants more. On a grey afternoon at Arsenal’s training ground in London Colney, the engaging and forthright Dutch forward pauses for a moment to reflect on the relentless nature of her career.
The player who scored twice for Holland in their victory over Denmark in the European Championship final in the summer has achieved so much in such a short time that she is wondering about what comes next. “I’m too relaxed,” Miedema says. “I always had plans, want to win this, this and this, but I’m only 21 and I just won the Euros, I won the German league, I won the Under-19 Euros.”
Miedema knows her worth, even though she trails off before she can list individual achievements such as being named Golden Player at the Under-19European Championship in 2014, making her professional debut at the age of 15 or scoring 39 goals for Heerenveen in a single season, and she is determined to see female footballers receive better pay and recognition.
“It’s really important as we put the exact same effort into our national side as the men do,” she says. “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.”
She takes no joy from pointing out the struggles of the Dutch men. Miedema inherited her Feyenoord obsession from her mother – Robin van Persie is one of her heroes – and she is worried about which team to support at next year’s World Cup. She might settle for Spain because she loved watching Fernando Torres and David Villa at Euro 2008.
There are more pressing concerns, though. Miedema was fortunate to grow up in a football-mad household. “If a girl doesn’t get the right opportunities or her family isn’t standing behind her, it’s so hard to make it,” she says.
“It’s not the same as in men’s football. If I watch my brother’s team, they have 25 people around the team and they only have 20 boys. If you compare what we have, and we are one of the biggest clubs in the world, even that difference is there. He’s just a boy who’s 17 years old, he’s not even at the top. It would be amazing if the girls have the same chance as the boys.
“I played with two other girls in my team when we still played with the boys. They were quite good as well but they didn’t have the support from their families. One of the girls got called up for the national team but her parents didn’t want to drive her there because, for a woman, you don’t get enough money out of it.”
Miedema, who joined Arsenal from Bayern Munich in the summer, is notorious for not celebrating her goals. She is not the boastful type. She attributes a modest attitude down to her upbringing in the north of the Netherlands. “I don’t like to be the person everyone watches,” she says. “It’s my job. I’m happy if someone else scores. I celebrate more.”
She shrugs her shoulders and offers a shy smile before admitting that she has no idea where her Golden Player trophy is, and that her medal from Euro 2017 got damaged when her little brother dropped it on the dancefloor after the Denmark game. Fame has not changed Miedema for the worse. Instead she is acutely aware of her responsibilities after Holland’s success as the host nation elevated her to iconic status.
“No one really knew what was going on in women’s football,” she says. “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.”
Miedema, who is still settling in England, feels like a pioneer. “We’re the example now,” she says.“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. 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.”
It irritates Miedema that many of her Dutch team-mates had to move to foreign leagues to improve their game and earn more money, even though it ultimately benefited the national team. She is also not sure whether to take being compared to Robben as a compliment or evidence of an ignorance about women’s football.
“Me playing at Bayern, Robben playing at Bayern, I guess that’s why they said it,” she says. “But it’s so hard to compare yourself to that player.” Miedema shares few similarities with Robben on the pitch.
“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.”
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion