From overlooked to unignorable, Mary Earps revolutionised the way that women's goalkeeping is perceived. Now, it's time for a new Lioness to define her legacy between the sticks.
Header image: Fran Santiago - The FA/The FA via Getty Images
Great goalkeepers are often taken for granted, until they’re gone. They’re ever-present, part of the furniture, and the foundation upon which success is built. They operate in both the loneliest and most exhilarating place on the pitch - always in plain sight, yet somehow out of focus, with the eyes of onlookers drawn to the ball or the net just behind them. Unless it’s a clip of a sprawling fingertip save, they’re more often than not the extras in someone else’s highlight reel.
And then there’s Mary Earps. A player who, for the longest time, wasn’t even part of the conversation. Until she became the conversation. The leading role. The Lionesses’ main protagonist. Someone who refused to be shunted into the background or quietly taken for granted. A player you couldn’t ignore, and couldn’t take your eyes off of.
Last week, Earps announced her retirement from international football, pulling the curtain on a Lionesses career that almost never happened. Her's is a story of second chances, stubborn resilience, and a goalkeeper who became, somehow, both the face of a generation and a reminder of how many times this game overlooks its best, at the detriment to itself.
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It’s easy to forget now, but for a long stretch Mary Earps wasn’t a name you’d associate with the England number one shirt. Her first senior cap came in 2017, at a time when the Lionesses’ goalkeeping situation felt like an afterthought. Karen Bardsley was the established presence, Carly Telford drifted in and out, and Earps was the one making up the numbers.
She didn’t get a minute at Euro 2017. She travelled to the 2019 World Cup but barely sniffed the pitch. And then, quietly, in that strange, ruthless way international careers tend to unravel, she disappeared. Not injured, not out of form. Just overlooked. By 2020, Earps wasn’t even in Phil Neville’s squads. She’d later admit she thought her England days were over.
And then, as so often happens in this sport, everything changed because of one manager. When Sarina Wiegman took the England job in 2021, she arrived with a clear idea of what she wanted from a goalkeeper. It turned out it looked a lot like Mary Earps.
Wiegman wanted someone brave off their line, a goakeeper comfortable with the ball at their feet, unafraid to bark orders at the back four. The team needed a voice - a fixed point on the pitch for when the game turned everything else into a swirling maelstrom of noise. A lighthouse in the midst of the tempest.
She valued mentality as much as reflexes, and Earps had both in spades. The swagger, the relentlessness, the ability to reset after a mistake and go again. Wiegman saw in Earps not just a safe pair of hands, but the spine of a side with serious ambitions.
Earps went from squad ghost to ever-present in the space of a year. At Euro 2022 she played every minute, making crucial saves in moments that cemented her as an indispensable cog in Wiegman’s winning machine.
There was the sprawling one-on-one stop against Austria in the opener, a fingertip save from Lina Magull in the final when it felt like the whole night was tilting Germany’s way, and countless crosses claimed under pressure when the game threatened to descend into chaos. She was solid. She was decisive. In a tournament defined by wild scorelines and jittery finishes, Earps gave England a foundation. Calm, authoritative, louder than anyone else on the pitch, she became an icon of Wiegman’s side.
By the 2023 World Cup, she was a cult figure. Part of it was the saves, obviously. Part of it was the refusal to accept second-best. But a lot of it was the personality. Earps has this brilliant knack for looking absolutely furious one second and disarming everyone with a grin the next. She built a huge following with unapologetically chaotic TikToks that gave fans a glimpse behind the curtain. Between all of that and getting caught swearing on the tele, Earps has an innate relatability you can’t manufacture, one that connected with the fans in the stands and the nation on sofas at home.
She did what the best, most lovable footballers do — she bridged that gap between the players and the people watching. She looked like she was enjoying every minute just like a fan would, and cared just as much as every fan did. More, even. She was relatable while being aspirational. We were all a bit like Mary Earps, and we all wanted to be a bit more like Mary Earps.
And then came the final against Spain. A difficult afternoon for England, second-best for long spells, but Earps was magnificent. Brave when she needed to be, pulling off a string of sharp saves to keep England clinging on. Then, in the 69th minute, with Spain 1–0 up, Jennifer Hermoso stepped up to the spot. Earps danced on her line, guessed right, and palmed the penalty away. The raised fist. The primal scream. A face contorted with pure, unfiltered defiance.
In a World Cup final England lost, it became the image of the tournament for English fans.
A symbol. Of resilience. Of fury. Of a player who knew what it felt like to be discarded and had decided she wasn’t going quietly. Fittingly, she left Australia with the Golden Glove and, probably, more new fans than any other player on the planet.
But the reason Earps matters goes beyond the goalposts. While so many sports stars stick to their lanes, Earps wasn’t having it. She spoke out when Nike refused to sell women’s goalkeeper shirts during the World Cup, publicly shaming one of the biggest brands in sport into a U-turn. She became an advocate — not just for herself, but for an entire generation of goalkeepers who’d spent their careers being told to stay quiet, take the scraps, and be grateful for them.
Her popularity exploded. Merchandise ranges. BBC Sports Personality shortlists. A wax figure at Madame Tussauds. Earps felt like the kind of character English football hadn’t produced in years — a hero with a pair of gloves and a ponytail.
And now, this. Just weeks out from Euro 2025, Earps stepping aside. The reasons are, for now, hers alone. She’d lost her starting place in recent squads, with Hannah Hampton beginning to edge ahead in the pecking order. But still, for a player who built a career on proving people wrong, it felt like there was one more chapter to be written.
The statement she released was as classy as you’d expect: “It has been the greatest honour and privilege of my life to wear this badge, represent my country and play alongside such an incredible group of players.”
And just like that, it’s done.
Earps leaves with 53 caps and a legacy that can’t be measured in numbers. She didn’t just win trophies and collect individual awards. She changed the conversation. She made goalkeepers cool again. She reminded everyone what this position can be: a voice, a presence, a force that can drag a team forward.
Ian Willcock, who coached Earps at Manchester United for several years, put it succinctly: "“Mary [Earps] has made goalkeeping cool”, he said, speaking to Goalkeeper.com.
“I think people have seen the likes of Mary and other people really shine. There are lots of people that want to be goalkeepers now, which is great. Now it’s about how you can develop that talent to really kick on and push to be as good as they can be.”
“I think as well with England winning the Euros, that really catapulted it. We saw massive change after they won the Euros. We used to come out to do the warm-up before the Euros and there wouldn't be many people in the stadium.
“And literally overnight, the first game of the season, after they'd won the Euros we stepped foot on the pitch, to go and do the warmup, and all you could hear was these voices of kids shouting, Mary, Mary, Mary.”
It would be accurate to suggest that the popularity of goalkeeping in women’s football, especially in England, can be attributed to Earps. Following England’s 2022 Euros victory and reaching the final of the 2023 World Cup, the Paris Saint Germain goalkeeper has become ubiquitous when discussing goalkeeping in England.
“The change over the last few years from Mary’s achievements after winning the Euros and seeing her shirt everywhere,” says Willcock.
“I would go out with my daughter and take her shopping. And she’d nudged me and say ‘Dad look someone's got a Mary Earps shirt over there’. It blew her mind.”
In a game still figuring out how to properly value its women’s keepers, Mary Earps was a landmark, the most visible female goalkeeper since Hope Solo, and arguably the most beloved. The one you’d want in the trenches. A player you’d want to make the net bigger for, not smaller - because how else could you contain a personality that towers over those outdated ideas that women’s keepers can’t measure up?
In years to come, when people ask what made this Lionesses era special, they’ll start with the name they almost left out, they’ll start with Mary Earps.
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But this is international football and as one great steps aside there’s always someone waiting to step into the frame. In recent months, it’s been Hannah Hampton edging ahead in the pecking order and, by all accounts, seizing her opportunity.
It hasn’t been straightforward. Left out of the England squad for long stretches under Wiegman, Hampton’s final months at Aston Villa felt tense — whispers of fallouts, questions over attitude, the usual labels pinned to young, ambitious players who don’t always fit the mould. But her move to Chelsea last summer proved transformative. Emma Hayes took her in, Stuart Searle got to work, and Hampton knuckled down. What followed was a string of calm, commanding performances.
At just 24, she’s been one of the standout performers in the WSL over the past 18 months. Her distribution, decision-making under pressure, and command of the box have all tightened up, particularly in high-stakes fixtures. A string of sharp saves in the Champions League semi-final, paired with her increasingly vocal presence behind Chelsea’s back line, pushed her firmly back into Wiegman’s plans.
And when her chance came in the Euro 2025 qualifiers, she didn’t flinch. Clean sheets against Sweden and Ireland, confident handling, composed in possession — Hampton looked like a keeper ready for the long haul. There’s still a rawness, sure, moments where instinct lags behind experience, but you sense she’s growing into it. More vocal now, more sure of herself.
Wiegman seems to see her as a long-term project, someone capable of holding down the No.1 shirt for years to come. Stuart Searle, who’s worked closely with her at Chelsea, has always rated her highly.
Earps isn’t a player you simply replace. Her voice, her joy, her perfectly captured-in-4K profanities will linger for a long time yet. But football moves on, and as the echoes of her words begin to fade, a new presence is clearing her throat.
