Today’s episode of Lionesses: Down Under connected by EE sees Jill Scott and Kyle Walker joined by Mary Earps to discuss her journey to the World Cup.
MARY EARPS
On preparations for the Nigeria match:
“We’re ready and looking forward to it. Obviously, it’s crunch time now so we’re raring to go.”
On the team’s performances so far:
“So far so good. The most important thing is that we’ve been winning. I definitely would have preferred the clean sheet against China, but I think we’re in a really good spot. I’m just trying to enjoy every minute because it’s been great so far.”
On representing her country at a World Cup:
“I’m loving it. I’m really conscious of trying to make the most of every day. You’re at the World Cup, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Every day I just try not to take it for granted.
“It’s once every four years that it comes along. And to represent your country at this level – the elite of the elite, the crème de la crème, playing with and against the best players in the world – I think that’s hard to top.
“But outside of the football, making memories and getting to travel the world with incredible people. When you go away with a group of people you’ll have memories for life, it brings you together and it’s a bond that you’ll have forever. It means you’ll always have something to talk about for years to come.”
On maintaining focus in goal:
“It’s part of the job, it’s hard. We’re a great team and our aim is always to possess the ball as much as possible which hopefully means I don’t have to do very much. But it’s international football, it’s a very high level so you always have to be switched on and ready for anything that can happen, which is what I try to do.”
On her career journey:
“There was definitely a space of two years where it wasn’t going so great. People always say to me, what happened? What made it improve so much? And the honest answer is I just don’t know. It was a lot of different things coming together at one time. In a time where the world was suffering with Covid, I was on my own and I had to figure it out by myself. I’m a big believer in things happening to form a big part of your character and your story. I’m just really grateful to be in the position I am now, and I can look back and know the heartache and tears were worth it.”
On being a role model:
“It really hits home to know that I can have a positive impact on people all over the world. We all want to leave a legacy – we want to leave the game and the world in a better place. We often focus on football but at the end of the day it’s about who you are as a person and a human being and the impact you can have on others. I want to inspire as many people as possible, it means a great deal to me.”
On how she got into goalkeeping:
“I tried goalkeeping in my first game when I was getting into football, we were taking rotations to go in goal. 10 minutes in, it hadn’t started off the way I wanted it to. I was a bit bored, cartwheeling around. I was saying to my dad, I don’t want to be here, I want to be up there where the ball is. A penalty comes, I saved the penalty and my dad, like a typical dad, goes, ‘see if one of the other girls was in goal, they wouldn’t have saved that.’ And that was it. That was my moment where I felt like I was where I was supposed to be, diving around in the mud and helping the team.”
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