The Big Interview: Mary Earps
After an incredible 2022 for club and country, Manchester United and England #1 Mary Earps discusses her rollercoaster journey to the top and how life has changed post-Euros success.
Life if rosy for Mary Earps right now. As she prepares to enter her thirties next month, she is firmly established as the number one goalkeeper for both club and country.
For anyone, that would be classed as some achievement, but for the club to be Manchester United and the country to be European champions England is beyond anything perhaps Earps herself perhaps would have imagined five years ago when she left behind Reading for a spell in Germany, with just one Lionesses cap to her name.
While her year at women’s football titans Wolfsburg didn’t offer much game time, it offered Earps a first glimpse at a genuine elite level in the women’s game and set her up for her move to Manchester United a year later under the guidance of then head coach Casey Stoney.
She has taken her opportunity when offered it with England under Sarina Wiegman with both hands - quite literally - and her performances at Euro 2022 were influential in the team’s maiden success, and earned Earps a nomination for FIFA Best Goalkeeper of the Year, alongside the likes of Christiane Endler.
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“I feel good,” says Earps, from her home in the north west. “I feel like I’m playing good football and really just want that to continue. Obviously being named on the FIFA shortlist is just an incredible feeling.
“I didn’t even know it was coming, Ash my agent text me and it was just a nice surprise and a really nice way to start the year. I’m just super proud to be on that list alongside some incredible goalkeepers.”
Earps now has 29 caps for her country, with 15 of them coming in a historic 2022 for both her and the team, more than the previous five years combined since her senior debut against Switzerland back in 2017.
The shot-stopper was left at home 12 months earlier by Hege Riise when Team GB went to Tokyo for the Olympic Games, with Manchester City’s Ellie Roebuck seemingly cementing her place as the number one at international level, until injury, combined with Earps’ good form at club level, gave her the opportunity to make the shirt her own, and she doesn’t appear to be letting go of it anytime soon.
“It’s been an incredible 18 months, I’d say,” she reflects. “The couple before that were not so great, so for me I’m just really grateful I’m in this position and I’ve really been able to fight back. It’s just all about trying to be the best player and person I can be and I’m just happy with that.
“Hopefully I can keep contributing in a really positive way for both Man United and England. I just really want to keep things going the way they are and keep pushing myself to be better and better. That’s kind of all my focus is on the really, the next thing.”
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