Leeuwarden, Netherlands – June 26: Vivianne Miedema of the Netherlands celebrates after scoring her … More
The all-time leading goalscorer in the WSL is set to become only the 22nd player in history to score 100 international goals if she scores at UEFA Women’s Euro 2025.
Three men – led by the great Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi – and eighteen women have scored more than 100 times for their country in the history of the professional game. The all-time leading international goalscorer is Canada’s Christine Sinclair with 190 goals in 328 appearances.
On Thursday, Miedema, who had not played at all in over two months, returned from a hamstring injury to score twice against Finland. Those two goals took her international tally to a remarkable 99 goals in 125 games for the Netherlands, a strike rate of 0.79 goals per game.
Her next goal for her country would make Miedema only the seventh European player to score more than 100 international goals after Cristiano Ronaldo, Birgit Prinz, Julie Fleeting, Patrizia Panico, Julie Fleeting, Elisabetta Vignotto and Carolina Morace.
Aged 28 years, 11 months, Miedema is also set to become the second-youngest European player in history to score a century of goals for her nation ahead of German Prinz who scored her 100th international goal on her 29th birthday against England in October 2006. Miedema turns 29 two days after the end of the Netherlands’ group stage matches in Switzerland.
Scotland’s Julie Fleeting took the European record from Prinz a year later by scoring her 100th goal in October 2007 at the age of 26 years and 313 days. Mia Hamm remains the youngest-ever player in history to score 100 goals, reaching the landmark aged 26 years, 185 days in 1998.
67 of Miedema’s goal have come in competitive games, 32 in friendly internationals. She has scored seven international hat tricks including, remarkably, two in one game when Miedema hit six in a 12-0 win over Cyprus in April 2022.
Miedema’s first opportunity to score her landmark 100th goal will be against Wales, the lowest-ranked nation at the tournament, on Saturday. She already knows what it is like to score against Wales having found the net twice against them in a 2017 friendly just before UEFA Women’s Euro 2017.
(L-R) Hayley Ladd of Wales, Lieke Martens of Holland, Vivianne Miedema of Holland, Danielle van de … More
Since going down with Covid-19 during Women’s Euro 2022, a succession of injuries have limited Miedema’s international appearances. She has only played ten games for the Netherlands in the last three years, still maintaining her prodigious scoring rate by finding the net five times.
Speaking after the game on Thursday, Miedema confessed that “I worked really hard to be able to stand here at all. We had agreed beforehand that we had to be smart with the minutes, so it was nice that I could be on the field and score my goals. Even though they were certainly not the most beautiful.”
Miedema was withdrawn from the field of play after 62 minutes and may not be ready to play a full game until later in the tournament. She will recall her experience of playing at the last UEFA Women’s Euro in England when she was rushed back after testing positive for Covid-19 to complete a full 120 minutes in their quarter-final defeat to France. An under-par Miedema later admitted she should not have played.
“I haven’t played for almost three months,” she said on Thursday. “For me, this match was very nice to get some minutes. Hopefully I can build on that in training and start the European Championship as fit as possible. That also applies to Lineth Beerensteyn. Her qualities match my qualities well, so it would be nice if we could play together.”
Miedema became her country’s all-time leading scorer with a goal at the FIFA Women’s World Cup against Cameroon. The normally understated forward celebrated with an extravagant forward roll, which she later admitted was for her watching brother.
Miedema was therefore pleased to have saved her 100th international goal for the UEFA Women’s Euro. “I had promised my mother that I would not score my hundredth tonight, because she and my brother were not present. Hopefully it will come when they can be there.”
