With a wide radiant smile, a waving ponytail together with an appearance of self-assured Swagger, Safia Middleton-Patel is not difficult to recognize.
She is a keeper, who, like all football players, will tell you are a breed of each other! Throwing yourself next to each other, enjoy the diving head first to a swinging boot from a touch forward and enjoy a ball that is pushed to your face from a point with a blank distance.
Although Middleton pattern all likes that, her daily professional tasks must run synchronously with its 100 percent synchronous with laser-like focus. Middleton pattern is autistic. Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) is her diagnosis, one that she only received when she was 18 years old.
As such, daily tasks take up enormous amounts of energy and often require preparation well in advance.
“They are simple things that really influence our lives and change how we deal with things,” Middleton-Patel tells Sky Sports. “How to go to stores. I have to make sure they have self -service and from gas stations, I have to make sure they are self -service and I don't have to go into a store, otherwise I will drive a few miles to find one that does.”
Apart from her smile and outer bustle, Middleton pattern is often recognizable because she will wear sunglasses and have headphones.
As she explained, her teammates understand what to do to cope and concentrate, so don't blink an eye when she is in team meetings with sunglasses and headphones on.
She is not rude or inattentive – she concentrated, but to be in the zone, she must be comfortable and if wearing sunglasses and a few earplugs is what is needed, then it is!
Why the sunglasses? Middleton pattern is sensitive to bright light and says that a cloudy day where the light is a stabbing white can often be more uncomfortable than a sunny blue air day. It is a tool to remove sensitivity.
Some environments can also cause large deals of fear and stress that are energy suits, so fatigue can also play a role in daily life. Middleton-Patel remembers that he is afraid of being the thought of being somewhere with a lot of people who did not trust and worry if people would talk to her. How would she react? Could she respond? How would she leave there?
The pure weight of stress and fear demands its toll and often, but not always, autistic people are affected by psychological problems. The attitude of Middleton pattern is to tackle this frontally, she does not keep back on how she felt, how people helped her or hinder or to find a way forward. She is not afraid to express her opinion, nor afraid of offering help and shining a light.
“I always live, check your controllables because you are so entitled to your own feelings and you could feel sad and you could have psychological problems,” she says. “You can feel that and it is not your fault that you feel that way.”
Middleton pattern appears like a no-nonsense person, she laughed when I asked her about how her family and friends react with her as sometimes a fairly blunt “ok” actually means that it is completely fine, but what room wants. For some, that reaction can come across as bone or even rude – far from.
With ASC, after diagnosis, it is the family and friends who have to change their behavior, a little understanding can go a long, long way. Middleton-Patel smiled and looked at the floor when I asked her family and the journey they had and have with ASC. Because of their understanding and Safia's greater understanding of themselves, because the diagnosis of daily fears and stress can be relieved. Her love for her family shone.
The environment in which Middleton-Patel plays her football is one that she likes. It has not always been that way, she sometimes had a terribly challenging time with football. Autistic people of all backgrounds do not thrive in environments where society expects the same behavior and reactions as non-autistic people. It can lead to conflicts, it can certainly lead to stress and fear that achieve unbearable levels.
“I enjoy it now, I never used to it,” she says. “I used to think I just play it because I'm good at it. I loved football in the past year and I don't think I've ever experienced that.
“That is why it is now exciting to come to this tournament because I am in my life in my life where I want. This is what I want to do, this is what I dream of when I was little. I think I will look back on this forever and would be,” You've done that? ” And you have been in that situation where you didn't think you could, you didn't think you could get out of bed that day.
She is surrounded by teammates at Man Utd and Wales, together with the staff of both club and country who know how to have insight into her. An obvious example is how Middleton-Patel can be in a team meeting with shades and earplugs, but nobody gives it, nobody gives comments, nobody rates. It's Safia. She still records all the information and still contributes – she just does it in a slightly different way.
“It's huge, I don't think I could be in this position without them, without my teammates, without the staff, but also my family, it was such a difficult journey as a family,” she says. “I remember that I had a year in which I just didn't think I could continue, I wouldn't leave the house, I wouldn't really see friends.
“There were times when I look back now and I passed my family so much because I didn't know what was going on in my head and they didn't know what was going on. So for me my diagnosis pulled the family together. I am best friends with my mother, she helped me to be the woman I am.
“It just makes me laugh because I just love them and they really pulled me out of a real, really dark situation that I didn't think I could get out of.”
Middleton pattern did not receive her diagnosis until she was 18, that did not mean before life was in order. It wasn't. She could not understand her place in the world, her time of crisis, nor was family and friends. Autistic people come in all shapes, sizes, genera, backgrounds. Children to teenage years who are present in different ways, although girls and teenage girls can often mask their fears and stress in public and in family situations, only to feel when they are alone and away from the sparking of other people with stress, fear 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 happened to stay in the same hotel as the Middleton-Patel family who was encouraging her and Wales in Lucerne.
In the elevator back to our rooms the evening for the game I introduced myself to her father and told her that I had spoken with Middleton pattern about ASC and my experiences with people with the condition and what I had learned from her. He smiled clearly and said, “It's a journey, but what a journey.”
He was 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 to live as an autistic person on her Instagram account: SAF_middleton