‘Monster’ Mead is hungry for the Golden Boot
BETH MEAD is in the form of her life. On Monday she scored her fourth England hat-trick in nine months in the 8-0 demolition of Norway and is leading the race for the Euro 2022 Golden Boot with four in two games.
A ‘goalscoring monster’ is how Ian Wright described her. No player is in better form and she is one of the first names on boss Sarina Wiegman’s teamsheet.
But rewind a year and Mead was sitting at home, feeling bitter about being left out of Team GB’s Olympic squad. Though she did not know it at the time, it was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to her. The anger that Mead felt at being cast aside is what has fuelled an outstanding season for club and country.
Both Wiegman and Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall deserve credit for the role they have played in Mead’s form. Eidevall took over at the Gunners in the summer and recognised a player who had talent but was low on confidence.
Eidevall, speaking on the BBC, said: ‘In training, Beth went into a one against one, stepped on the ball and passed it back. So I blow the whistle and said, “I never want to see that again. You’re too good for that. When you have the opportunity, when you are at pace, you have to take her on every time. If you fail, you have my backing but you have to do it every time”.’
Mead took those words on board and when Arsenal played Chelsea in the first game of the season, she scored twice in a 3-2 win. That was the turning point.
She was called up to Wiegman’s first England squad and has not looked back. She was on the scoresheet in the first game against North Macedonia but it was the next game where she made her mark, against Northern Ireland at Wembley. With the game goalless after 60 minutes, Wiegman brought Mead off the bench. Disgruntled at being left out of the starting XI, the winger came out with fire in her belly and within 14 minutes she had scored her first international hat-trick.
She now has four, with one in the 20-0 win over Latvia, plus a four-goal haul away to Macedonia before Monday’s treble.
Wiegman has put her trust in 27-year-old Mead and reaped the rewards. The winger has been directly involved in 29 goals in Wiegman’s 16 games in charge, scoring 18 and assisting 11.
‘I’ve known where I’ve stood, what she’s expected of me,’ Mead said of Wiegman. ‘She’s given me a lot of confidence. It’s just been easy for me to go on the pitch and do what I know I can do and have the backing of my manager.’
Mead has made a habit of proving people wrong and says she plays better when she is angry. She struggled to get a game for England under Hope Powell or Mark Sampson, despite being the top scorer in the WSL with Sunderland. Then she was a No 9 but her move to Arsenal saw her shifted to the wing, a positional change Mead admitted she did not always favour.
But her second goal against Norway demonstrated just how much she has developed in that role. Mead cut in from the right, twisted and turned past three players before finishing into the bottom right corner. It was a run and goal that any winger would have been proud of and Eidevall described her performance as the best of any wide player at the tournament so far.
Mead would love to win the Golden Boot and she is now the favourite to do so. ‘I don’t think I even dreamed of this,’ she said.
If she continues in this vein of form, there is every chance she could end this tournament with not just the Golden Boot but a Euros winners’ medal as well.