With a broad beaming smile, a swaying ponytail along with an outwardly confident swagger, Safia Middleton-Patel is not hard to spot.
She is a goalkeeper, who as all footballers will tell you are a breed apart! Flinging yourself side to side, enjoying diving head first towards a swinging boot of an onrushing forward and taking delight in a ball being propelled at your face from point blank distance.
While Middleton-Patel loves all that, her daily professional tasks have to be in sync with her – 100 per cent in sync with laser-like focus. Middleton-Patel is Autistic. Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) is her diagnosis, one she received only when she was 18 years old.
As such, everyday tasks take up huge amounts of energy and often require preparation well in advance.
“It’s simple things that really impact our lives and changes how we have to deal with things,” Middleton-Patel tells Sky Sports. “How I have to go into shops. I have to make sure that they have self-service and like petrol stations, I have to make sure they’re self-service and I don’t have to go inside a shop otherwise I will drive a couple miles to find one that does.”
Apart from her smile and outward effervescence, Middleton-Patel is often recognisable as she’ll wear sunglasses and will have headphones on.
As she explained, her teammates understand what she needs to do to be able to cope and concentrate so don’t blink an eye if she’s sitting in team meetings with sunglasses and headphones on.
She’s not being rude or inattentive – she focused, but to be in the zone she needs to be comfortable and if wearing sunglasses and a pair of earbuds is what’s required, then so be it!
Why the sunglasses? Middleton-Patel is sensitive to bright light, saying that a cloudy day where the light is a stinging white can often be more uncomfortable than a sunny blue sky day. It’s an aid to removing sensitivity.
Some environments can also cause great deals of anxiety and stress which are energy-sapping so tiredness can also play a part in daily life. Middleton-Patel recalls dreading the thought of being somewhere with loads of people that wasn’t familiar and worrying if people would talk to her. How would she react? Could she react? How would she get out of there?
The sheer weight of stress and anxiety takes its toll and often, but not always, autistic people are affected by mental health problems. Middleton-Patel’s attitude is to tackle this head-on, she doesn’t hold back on how she’s felt, how people have helped or hindered her or to find a way forward. She’s not afraid to air her views nor afraid to offer help and shine a light.
“I always live off, control your controllables because you are so entitled to have your own feelings and you’re allowed to feel sad and you’re allowed to have mental health problems,” she says. “You’re allowed to feel that and it’s not your fault that you feel that way.”
Middleton-Patel appears as a no-nonsense individual, she laughed when I asked her about how her family and friends react with her as sometimes a fairly blunt “okay” actually means she’s completely fine, but wants some space. To some, that reaction might come across as blunt or even rude – far from it.
With ASC, after diagnosis, it is the family and friends that have to alter their behaviour, a little understanding can go a long, long way. Middleton-Patel smiled and looked down at the floor when I asked about her family and the journey they’ve had and are having with ASC. Through their understanding and Safia’s greater understanding of herself since diagnosis daily anxieties and stresses can be lightened. Her love for her family shone through.
The environment in which Middleton-Patel plays her football now is one she enjoys. It hasn’t always been that way, she’s at times had a horribly challenging time with football. Autistic people of all backgrounds do not thrive in environments where society expects the same behaviours and reactions as non-autistic people. It can lead to conflict, it can certainly lead to stress and anxiety reaching intolerable levels.
“I enjoy it now, I never used to,” she says. “I used to think I’m just playing it because I’m good at it. The past year, I’ve loved football and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that.
“That’s why coming to this tournament right now is so exciting because I’m at a time in my life where this is what I want. This is what I want to do, this is what I dreamt of when I was little. I think I’ll look back at this forever and be like, ‘You did that?’ And you’ve been in that situation where you didn’t think you could, you didn’t think you could get out of bed that day. And now I’m in Switzerland, fighting for my place in the Euros.”
She is surrounded by teammates at Man Utd and Wales, along with the staff at both club and country who know how to have an understanding of her. An obvious example is how Middleton-Patel can sit in a team meeting with shades and earbuds, but no one cares, no one comments, no one judges. It’s Safia. She’s still taking in all the information, still contributing – she’s just doing it in a slightly different way.
“It’s massive, I don’t think I could be in this position without them, without my teammates, without the staff but also my family, it’s been such a difficult journey as a family,” she says. “I remember, I had a year where I just didn’t think I could continue, I wouldn’t leave the house, I wouldn’t really go see friends.
“There were times where I look back now and I put my family through so much because I didn’t know what was going on in my head and they didn’t know what was going on either. So for me, my diagnosis pulled the family together. I’m best friends with my mum, she’s got me here, she’s helped me become the woman I am.
“It just makes me smile because I just love them and they’ve really pulled me out of a really, really dark situation that I didn’t think I could get out of.”
Middleton-Patel didn’t receive her diagnosis until she was 18, that didn’t mean before then life was fine. It wasn’t. She couldn’t understand her place in the world, her times of crisis nor could family and friends. Autistic people come in all shapes, sizes, genders, backgrounds. Kids through to teenage years present in different ways although girls and teenage girls can often mask their anxieties & stresses in public and in family situations only to feel when alone and away from the glare of other people beaten up with stress, anxiety and exhaustion.
I spoke with Safia before she and the Wales squad left their training base in Weinfelden to play the Netherlands in Lucerne. I just happened to be staying in the same hotel as Middleton-Patel’s family who had come to cheer her and Wales on in Lucerne.
In the lift back to our rooms the night before the game I introduced myself to her Dad and told her I’d spoken at length with Middleton-Patel about ASC and my experiences of people with the condition and what I’d learned from her. He smiled brightly and said “it’s a journey, but what a journey.”
He was just about to see his daughter represent their country at Euro 2025.
Safia acknowledges that some days are just bad days. She supports the charity ‘if u care share’ / www.ifucareshare.co.uk and she regularly posts thoughts, tips and positive encouragement about living as an autistic person on her Instagram account: saf_middleton
