Manchester United and England Lioness Mary Earps won the FIFA Best Goalkeeper award in Paris on Monday evening. The 29-year-old had a phenomenal run during the Euros with four clean sheets and conceded only twice in the entire tournament.
During the recent international Tournament the Arnold Clark Cup, Earps kept one clean sheet and conceded one goal in the dying moments of her second game.
While at club level, she continues her remarkable form for Manchester United becoming the first goalkeeper in the Women’s Super League to reach 50 clean sheets. She said: "I hate conceding goals. If I could have my way, I wouldn't let a single goal in ever again... but we all know that's not possible."
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In a reflection on her journey to the top, Nottingham born Earps revealed where the passion for goalkeeping all started and suggested to the Nottingham Post that she may be a little mad: “I would say that anybody that plays in goal has to be a little bit different, whether I'm mad I will let the people decide. But I think that it's very unusual to put someone in the firing line of a football coming at any part of your body, face, knees, hands and you've got to sort of like it a little bit and be like okay, cool. I've got to deal with this in some way. I put my body on the line. That's obviously, really unusual.
“I feel really strongly that like goalkeeping is so fun, it's so unique. Obviously from my point of view, it's the most important position on a pitch. It's the hardest thing to do - it's so unique by nature because there's no one right way of doing things you just find a way for yourself and you see all different goalkeepers playing in the Premier League or in the WSL and they all have a completely different technique.
“It's not just all about scoring goals.
“So, Whether I'm a bit mad, I don't know, but I think it just sort of it was happenstance that I ended up in goal. I was really bored I'll be honest, I was cartwheeling around with my dad was standing by the goal and he said come-on, concentrate I said 'im so bored I want to be up there in the thick of the action'. I was one of those kids that I wanted to just be involved in it and score because I thought that's where all the fun was.
“And then I saved this penalty. And my dad said to me 'see if one of the other girls was in goal they wouldn't have saved that and that was it! That was just it, I trained as a goalkeeper ever since - I just loved it.
“I loved diving around in the mud, I love that feeling of making a save and helping the team. So in a long-winded way. Mad, potentially, but love goalkeeping definitely so.”
On collecting her FIFA Best accolade, she dedicated a special thanks to her “loved ones who picked me up off the kitchen floor a few years ago” and to her England boss Sarina Wiegman: “And to Sarina Wiegman, I have run out of words to say to you.
“Thank you for believing in me the way you have. This is for anyone who has been in a dark place. There is light at the end of the tunnel.”
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