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the-necessary-unnecessary · 4 years ago

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My top 7 Arsenal wfc players, aka the whole team because they're all my children and you can't chose between children

(And they're not many more than seven anyways)

Beth Mead: a wizard on the wong and the original crot queen. She may not have had the best season this year but shes still managed to play an important part in the team and has conquered many hearts in the process. If she has to retire early because of all the hits she receives during matches then she's got a bright future ahead of her as a cringey tiktok star or, if that fails, a career as a HSM impersonator on cruise ships

Cailtin Foord: there were mixed opinions when she was first announced as a new signing, but she almost immediately became one more member of the arsenal family amongst players and supporters alike. Before Covid struck shes already stamped her mark on the club with her skill and made her way onto the scoresheet, and now shes also made her way into Lia's house and infected the squad with the chaotic tiktok bug

Dan Carter: literally a gooner through and through having played for arsenal for practically all her life and pulling through in the big moments. Heartbreak and injury have been her middle names for over the past year having sustained two ACL injuries in 14 months. Even if she hasnt had as much of an impact on the pitch shes still been a large part of injury fc, with her and her diary always being a source of sarcasm and banter through it all.

Danielle Van De Donk: she probably described herself best when she said she was a feisty puppy who wants to ball. A woman who takes no prisoners during matches, opponents refs and the back of nets all fear her. Off the pitch though shes a real softie who radiates chaotic energy and yet has developed over the years into quite the leader (even if she still follows beth around on her tiktok adventures)

Jennifer Beattie: a friendly giant who quietly puts in all the work at the back, being an absolute unit as a last line of defense which was sorely missed during her injury. She came back from City because arsenal is home and that's beautiful. Talking about beautiful, her and Chloe. That's it, nothing more needs to be elaborated on. Pretty underrated although shes been getting more attention lately, she makes Kim company as the quiet Scottish duo who are lethal on the pitch

Jill Roord: despite her love hate relationship with goal posts, shes still made her mark at arsenal this year especially thanks to the fact that she has remained injury free this year (dont worry I touched wood when I typed that) and hopefully next year when shes settled in even more to the team and the league then she'll be able to show what she's truly made of. That is, if she lasts that long before the team kick her out for being too annoying. A woman who likes the two extremes, Frozen and Olaf as well as blonde tattooed players and famous thirst traps, she epitomises this soft yet hard personality dichotomy too

Jordan Nobbs: calm, composed, skillful, professional, dynamic and with the capacity of being able to astutely read the game, she's the personification of arsenal in a player. Having been at the club for a whole decade now she's practically lived it all and yet she continues on hungry for better and more. With the way she acts on the pitch you would never guess her forgetful, dorky, awkward nature off it. The woman with both the longest nando's order ever and the shortest attention span.

Katie McCabe: the Irish devil, the arsenal player founder of the tucked in shirt, member of the love to hate her girlfriend club. Her almost permanent move to left back this season has reaped bountiful benefits for her, a flexible player who always finds freedom on the wing shes proved herself as lethal as both a defender and a finisher. In Jordan's words, she talks about her biceps all the time, but so would I if I was that stacked. That being said, Ruesha always finds a way to beat her which is probably payback for her scoring against West Ham in the cup

Katrine Veje: another player lost to injury this season, although lockdown has treated her well (that makes one of us) and she's apparently fully fit again. Shes been sorely missed as a fullback for most of her season, her explosiveness and crosses in particular. As it is shes used her time to get in some spectacular photoshoots and just be and just be a source of clownery as a veteran at injury fc

Kim Little: as silent as Kim and as deadly as Kim should be new british sayings at this point. Quick on her feet with nerves of steel shes an impressive player to watch and is sometimes the glue in the midfield that keeps arsenal together. Her professionalism both on and off the pitch is as big as her dislike of cameras

Leah Williamson: the face of arsenal and not because of her looks, rather because of her insane talent and her embodiment of all things arsenal. From the moment she was born arsenal was pumping through her veins. One of the best up and coming CBs with long range passes for days she has been a crucial part of the arsenal squad for so long you forget she's just 23. What she lacks in some of her fashion choices she makes up in her bright and nerdy personality and her never ending stream of insults directed at Jordan

Leonie Maier: she recently said that she has never regretted the decision to move to arsenal and that has been because shes been able to shine in defense mainly alongside Leah, each playing off each other's strengths and developing herself as a player in a new league which is never an easy transition. Dont let her banana bread making trick you into thinking shes the mum in the group, shes proved herself to be as chaotic as the rest of them.

Lia Walti: arguably the best thing to come out of Switzerland since toblerone (much better than swiss cheese though). Like a lot of arsenal players, it sometimes seems like she would be better off playing in bubble wrap so she wouldnt sustain as many injuries. She's an intelligent player, one of the best qualities to have as a midfielder, with skill coming out of her ears and unfulfilled potential still to come. Her sunshine-like looks can be deceiving though because she leaves her brain cells in the changing room, as is becoming an arsenal tradition.

Lisa Evans: another alround players who, as a winger-cum-fullback, has thrived in her position this year. Her defensive position yet forward thinking mentality has proved deadly and when shes been given space to roam the wing too shes provided goals and assists a plenty. Her unpredictability on the pitch translates into her chaotic tendencies off it and a love for the arsenal anthem “we've got McCabe, Katie McCabe”. Sometimes she likes to pretend that she's a seal (exhibit A attached below)

Louise Quinn: it would be stereotypical to say that it's natural that shes so good at headers due to her height, but stereotypes exist for a reason and her tower-like build makes her a match for any Millie Bright in the heading department. She's a consistent, sturdy player who is great at starting up play from the back in many cases providing that vital first past (sometimes with her head because she's tall). Her pastimes include drinking a lot of coffee, understandable that she needs to refuel considering her height, and making fun on her teammates so that they dont make fun of her accent and her 183 cm length. Have I mentioned that she's tall?

Manuela Zinsberger: an extremely talented goalkeeper although sometimes people can excusably confuse her with being arsenal's eleventh outfield player. Another bayern recruit she's been key this season making some great saves and causing a few heart attacks in the process (west ham's penalty box free kick anyone?). She may look tough but she's just as much a clown as the rest of them

Pauline Peyraud-Magnin: the second proud member of the goalkeepers union. Shes not called the Hulk for no reason, racking up some great saves and skills with her feet even as Joe's second choice. What she lacks in command of the english language she makes up in utter chaos including hand gestures, shouting and eratic dancing, well as staging photoshoots at arsenal's gym.

Viki Schnaderbeck: shes been able to mostly avoid injury fc this season after a long stint there last year and her hardwork has paid off to establish her as a mainstay here as a skilled defensive player. Shes been loud and proud recently on social media and I am loudly and proudly here to support it

Vivianne Miedema: in Katie's own words “the goat”. Absolutely lethal as a center-forward, calm collected and composed in front of the goal, and also crucial in providing build up play and assists. She can both hold off opponents and reach an unmatched maximum speed with surprising ambidexterity and complete nonchalantness. The only player who is actively lazy and is able to get away with it. She puts up with a lot of chaos but is not unknown to add to it too, mainly providing subtle humor and sarcastic wit. Not a personality for the faint hearted.

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meademalove · 1 year ago

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https://archive.md/nzXFY

Panic attacks are terrifying. They can come out of nowhere. Can cause you to physically shake. Take your breath away. Bring on intense nausea.

The first time you have one, you might even think you are dying.

And they can happen to absolutely anybody.

“It’s mostly anxiety that triggers them for me,” Arsenal striker Vivianne Miedema tells The Athletic. She started experiencing panic attacks after winning the European Championship with the Netherlands in the summer of 2017 — a high that was followed by her move from Bayern Munich to Arsenal.

Her profile had skyrocketed and, with it, so had her anxiety.

In those early days, an attack would leave her physically and mentally exhausted for days. She would miss training sessions, unable to raise herself from the sofa.

Today, Miedema, 27, says the panic attacks are mostly “under control”.

She goes on to say: “But sometimes I still need to tell Beth (Mead, her fellow Arsenal striker, with whom Miedema is in a relationship), ‘Keep chatting to me, because I do feel really stressed’, or ‘I do feel really anxious’, and that can be in a lot of different environments.”

It’s at this moment that another voice can be heard on the line.

“You don’t need to ask me to keep talking…” it chuckles. It is Mead; a renowned chatterbox.

“Oh no, you don’t,” replies Miedema, in her typically deadpan way… “Bloody hell, I need to tell her to shut up.”

The couple are in different countries as we speak: Miedema away on international duty with the Netherlands and Mead, 28, at home in north London, excused from the Lionesses’ recent double header against Belgium to allow her to focus on her return to fitness from the ACL injury she suffered last year.

But they have come together (via the magic of WhatsApp) to discuss a topic that unites them just as much as the game they both love: mental health. Both are part of Common Goal’s new initiative Create the Space, which aims to create an environment in football where everyone is able and encouraged to express themselves.

"I actually think the first time I had it was when I moved to Arsenal in 2017,” says Mead. “I was 21, and though I knew there was something not quite right, at the time there wasn’t someone telling you, ‘Actually, you maybe have a few issues’.”

Mead had said goodbye to Sunderland, the club she’d joined as a 16-year-old and moved south to join Arsenal, a five-hour-plus drive away from her family and friends. When she arrived in London, she was carrying an injury which meant her time on the pitch was limited.

“Football is really important for me; it helps me refresh and switch off from things in the world. I didn’t have that coming into a new environment and I really struggled for quite a long time.

“At the time, I just blamed it on me being young and needing to be more mature, but actually that’s not the case. Now I think it was OK to not feel OK in those circumstances.”

When Norwich City released a video as part of World Mental Health Day last month (below), Mead found herself nodding in recognition at the message it delivered: to check in on those around you, however they might seem.

"That was probably your best definition of mental health issues,” she says. “You’ve got someone who is very outgoing like myself and then the other person is a little bit more introverted, like a Viv, and you don’t know what’s going on with people.”

Growing up, Miedema’s approach to dealing with difficult feelings was to close herself off from them. To push them so far down inside herself that she could almost forget they were there.

“I realised quite early on that I had to change that,” she says. “But I didn’t really do anything with it. Where I grew up, in the north of Holland, mental health or not being OK was not a ‘done thing’. You had to be good. You had to enjoy things. Then when I moved to an environment in Munich (Miedema signed for Bayern in June 2014, one month shy of her 18th birthday), it was very strict and it wasn’t about how you were feeling at all.

“I remember going to the coach saying ‘I feel like it’s been too much for me. I might need a bit more time.’ And it was like, ‘No, you need to train harder because then you’ll forget about things. You get tired and your mind doesn’t need to overwork’. But my mind doesn’t work like that.

“So when I moved to Arsenal and we got the opportunity to actually speak with someone (a sports psychologist), I was a bit like, ‘Oh, am I going to do it? Do I need it? What can I expect?’. Because it was never OK for me to even think about going to see someone or speak with someone.”

When she started experiencing panic attacks, Miedema knew she had to open up. Though she’s not working with the club’s psychologist now, she worked with the previous one for five years.

“That was my way out. And I always say that probably the proudest moment of my career so far is making that step: to actually take care of myself, take care of my mental state and not just the physical state.”

It’s not something that is ever really “gone” though, Miedema says.

"Three or four years later, you’ll still have a panic attack and then you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m going to fall back into that old rhythm, or am I going to speak with someone to hope that ultimately it sorts itself out again?’.

“That’s the part where it becomes really important that you keep checking in with yourself and the people around you. So that before it gets too bad again, you jump on it and make sure you take care of yourself early enough.”

Miedema was with her previous partner when the panic attacks first started. When she got together with Mead, she made sure to be as open as possible about what she might need.

“I remember having a conversation with Beth and basically saying, ‘This is how I sometimes am. This is how you can help me. But other moments, I don’t know if you can help me, just make sure that you’re there for me’.

"I can only say to Beth that she’s been amazing in that way and really helps me through the moments that I do struggle. That’s what we want to put out there now; to make sure that it’s something that’s going to be shared with other people. So, if you do struggle, say it to your team-mates, to your friends, to your family. Don’t hold it in just for yourself.”

For Mead, it has been a learning process. But one that has helped her as much as it has Miedema.

“Looking at Viv in comparison to myself, I’m someone who pushes things under the rug and keeps it within me and then I struggle inside, but my exterior isn’t (showing it),” she says. “Whereas I see physically with Viv how she’s feeling. And sometimes that’s really hard for me to understand.

"Over time, I’ve grown to understand it better. We still have days where I’m like, ‘What do you need from me? Because I still don’t know’. Sometimes Viv doesn’t know herself what she needs. But if I’m here and being present and trying to make Viv present as much as possible, I think that’s an important process.

“Sometimes it’s hard to put your finger on what is the right thing to do, and that’s OK. Between the two of us, we figure something out.”

After the high of winning the European Championship with England last summer, Mead was hit with the low of rupturing her ACL last November — an injury that cast major doubt on her role at this summer’s World Cup. She was heartbroken.

Three weeks later, Miedema tore her ACL too. For the next nine months or so, they would be travelling the same path. Dealing with the same demons.

"I was given sympathy for 3 weeks and now she has to go get some of her own,” wrote Mead in an Instagram post following Miedema’s injury. “But we got this, YOU got this. 2 new signings incoming @viviannemiedema.”

Less than a month after that post, Mead lost her mum, June, to cancer. It was the hardest time of her life. Without football to occupy her mind and body, she was lost.

“Everybody uses things in different ways. Football was my outlet. It was my happy place. It was my place to switch off. I lost my mum and I wasn’t able to play football. It’s not that I ever want to forget about her, but just to have those moments where it switched off for a second. That’s where I’ve had to grow and learn to process things a little differently. I can’t just escape through football.”

Miedema, she says, has been “amazing. Sometimes people think I’m fine, but I have those moments at home that just Viv would see…”. Mead also credits her close family members and team-mates for helping her through the last 10 months. “Without them, it could have been a much, much darker time than it already was.”

Keeping on top of their mental health over the past year or so has been a constant management process for both players.

For Miedema, that has involved speaking up when she felt physically and mentally unable to compete at her usual level. The Netherlands’ record goalscorer caught Covid-19 during Euro 2022, leaving her bed-bound for 10 days, and after struggling through the early part of the season with her club, she hit a wall.

“Physically, I didn’t feel right,” she says. “And if you don’t feel right physically, your burden becomes even more on your mental health. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I woke up in the mornings and I thought, ‘S***, I need to go to training again. I don’t want to do it’.”

After conversations with her national team coach Andries Jonker and Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall, it was agreed that Miedema would take two weeks off. “I went to the other side of the world, which was bloody brilliant. But I really needed it. If I had gone on like that, I don’t know if I would have still wanted to play football.”

Miedema is aware that she’s in something of a privileged position when it comes to asking for time off — something a younger, less experienced player might feel less comfortable doing. She is also aware of how rare it is for a player to take time away from the game without being forced to by injury; something she hopes her actions can help to change.

"I still get asked about it in interviews and people still mention it around me like, ‘Oh, she took a break for her mental health’. So it’s clearly not a normal thing.

“I hope to be an example in that way. Something I always say to all my team-mates and the young girls coming through is that ‘Your mental health is the very first thing to actually being a footballer and being successful. So take care of that first’.”

As the women’s game continues to grow, Mead and Miedema believe it’s a message that carries more importance than ever.

“Everybody deals with things differently,” says Mead. “Whether it’s internally or externally. That’s something that I’ve learned with me and Viv dealing with things quite opposite.

"And like Viv said earlier, it’s not something that’s just going to go away. We’ve both come through ACL injuries. We don’t just come back in and we think we’re perfect. We’ve got to do little things daily that help our knees. And we’ve got to do things daily that help us mentally too. It’s the same whether it’s an actual injury, or whether it’s mental health.

“It’s been a learning process for us. And we’re not perfect, but we’re better than we used to be.”

While for some, speaking with a psychologist or having time off might be necessary, Miedema also wants to spread the message that sometimes, mental health can be helped simply by having a conversation with a team-mate, a coach or a trusted friend. “It’s just about taking care of one another,” she says.

"Not everyone is a psychologist, but we are all people. So we should all try and understand how to deal with someone else. There is no handbook, but there should be. So that we know, if someone is struggling, how can we check in with that person? What is the next step? How can we help them find the right person within the club? And mostly how can we keep supporting that person who’s going through it?

“Our generation right now, we have got the responsibility to keep saying, ‘It’s OK to not be OK’ and it is OK to try and find help. It’s OK to take 10 days off if you need it because, in the end, if we keep doing it, we clear that pathway for the younger generation coming through. And that’s not just within football — that’s within society.”

❤️❤️❤️

Their journeys have been tough, but they're there for each other, and they try to make it less difficult for everyone else.

It takes a lot of strength to know when you need help, ask for help, and speak up about mental health issues.

Massive love and respect for Beth and Viv. Role models. ❤️

#beth mead #meadema #viv miedema #vivianne miedema #woso #arsenal #arsenal women #awfc #beth and viv #viv and beth #arsenal wfc #beth mead and vivianne miedema

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