Lego and tattoos – Wales’ role model goalkeeper

Nations League: Wales vs. Denmark

Date: Friday, May 30th, 2018 Kick-off: 18:15 BST

Live coverage on the BBC Sport website and app, as well as live text commentary, BBC Two Wales, BBC iPlayer, BBC Radio Wales, and Radio Cymru.

She is already a role model for Manchester United and Wales.

And now that Euro 2025 is approaching, has been demonstrating why many people believe she will be the nation’s future leader.

Safia Middleton-Patel, a 20-year-old goalkeeper, has long hailed Mary Earps as an idol but is starting to take her own brand.

Wales won a stunning 1-1 draw in Sweden thanks to her performance on her competitive international debut last month.

She has also won praise off the pitch for overcoming stigmas surrounding autism after speaking out about her own diagnosis.

The player who was born in Wrexham and is known as simply Saf in the Wales camp did not always want to play football, and certainly not to become a goalkeeper.

Middleton-Patel eventually “wasted” into football after beginning a very early experiment with street dancing or any other sport.

“I was the only girl on the team unfortunately, it wasn’t very big back then,” she told Wales’ BBC Sport back in 2023.

“Every year, I went to a summer camp with the young people.” They didn’t want to enter the goal, so they just threw the young woman in.

“But to be fair, I really enjoyed it, I loved lowering the boys, saving them, and making them angry.”

It served as a means of advancing to regional talent centers before joining Liverpool’s academy before making his 2020 debut for Manchester United.

Middleton-Patel, whose father is Indian, is also proud of her south Asian heritage, who proudly wears the Welsh dragon she has worn throughout the age groups.

United consider her to be the first player from an Indian background to play for either the women’s or the men’s sides in one of their senior squads.

And she made her debut alongside fellow Wales international Neil Taylor, another Wales international with Indian heritage, after being first called into the senior set-up in September 2022 and winning a first cap in a 1-0 friendly win over the Philippines in February 2023’s Pinatar Cup.

A player who claimed she always felt “different” at the age of 18 received her first Wales cap at a crucial time.

Middleton-Patel, who made her first Championship appearance the day after signing with Coventry United on loan, described how the excruciating emotions turned into a turning point.

She said, “I couldn’t function, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t regulate my temperature,” before turning to seek help and discovering some answers with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis.

I was struggling with simple daily tasks and was being so hard on myself. I said, “I think there’s something wrong with me,” but now that I look at it, I can see that my brain was functioning properly.

Middleton-Patel claims she can sometimes be hyper-focused while playing with her ASD, which she has since described as something of a superpower.

However, she has also developed hercoping strategies, such as those sunglasses that are among the tools, and the therapy of building Lego has resulted in the formation of a United club with close friends Rachel Williams, Leah Galton, and Jess Simpson, with new boxes regularly being brought onto international duty.

The Welsh daffodils’ debut date is printed on her arm, along with a nod to her Harry Potter super fan status, and there is even a Lego tattoo embedded in her arm.

The biggest impact could be made, however, by what she can do with her hands.

Middleton-Patel’s recent player of the match performance in Gothenburg gave Rhian Wilkinson plenty to think about as the veteran Laura O’Sullivan-Jones was sidelined for the tournament.

In the biggest game of her career, she saved eight saves despite only winning her third.

Former forward Gwennan Harries aptly described it as “Outstanding.”