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There was only two players who scored three hat-tricks in a major European league last season. One was Harry Kane. The other was neither Erling Haaland nor Kylian Mbappe. It was Croydon-born former Arsenal striker Mika Biereth for Monaco.
He achieved the feat within the first seven games of his Ligue 1 career following a January move from Austrian club Sturm Graz. One year prior to that, Biereth had made his big breakthrough in senior football while on loan in Scotland with Motherwell.
“It is fantastic what he is doing,” Stuart Kettlewell tells Sky Sports. Kettlewell, now in charge at Kilmarnock, was Motherwell’s manager at the time. “He has really captured the imagination. Am I surprised? Absolutely not. We could see the talent that he had.”
It was obvious from the very first training session. “We worked on a drill where he was up against a couple of physical defenders, real competitors. But he is not scared of contact, he thrived in the duel with defenders. He prided himself on coming out on top.”
His Motherwell debut at home to Hibernian was even more impressive. “He was only capable of playing 30 minutes or so but had an unbelievable impact on the game. He scored one and set up the other fantastically well. He was exceptional that day.”
Kettlewell adds: “He was not fully fit at the time. I almost felt sorry for him at the end, he looked as if he was ready for his bed, just because he had exerted so much energy. He really burst onto the scene. I think he has done that everywhere he’s been, hasn’t he?”
Almost but not quite. Biereth had an awkward loan move to the Netherlands where he struggled for minutes with RKC Waalwijk. At 20, the move to Motherwell was make or break and there were those in Scotland unconvinced by his credentials at that stage.
London-born striker Mika Biereth is now a Denmark international
“He had really big shoes to fill at Motherwell. We had lost a striker in Kevin Van Veen that had scored 29 goals a season before and nominated for Player of the Year in Scotland. We had to field a lot of questions about how we were going to replace him.
“I think there was a lot of doubters and a lot of naysayers. A lot of people looked at me and the club as mad for trying to replace the top goalscorer in the country with a young lad coming in from Arsenal that had not had a particularly good loan in Holland.
“We signed him off the back of not a great deal of footage, if you like. We watched a lot of his academy stuff, obviously know his pathway coming from Fulham to Arsenal, he had a loan move out in Holland, and we had seen the limited footage of that.
“It was about trying to unearth a gem. We just felt that with his style of play, wanting to be that proper number nine that really enjoys the physical side of the contact, that it would be conducive to a young player in Scotland. That is exactly how it panned out.”
Mika Biereth playing for Motherwell against Scotland in the Scottish Premiership
Biereth only stayed at Motherwell half a season before moving on to Sturm Graz. “He probably did too well because Motherwell did not have a chance to keep him.” But Kettlewell stayed in touch, watching on as his career went from strength to strength.
What sort of player is Biereth? He once described himself as a **** Haaland mixed with a **** Kane which might be viewed as cocky or modest, depending on which part you focus on. Kettlewell laughs at the line. “Trust me, he is very humble, very grounded.”
Others have likened him to Jamie Vardy and his former coach sees a bit of that in him too. “That speed of thought to be able to play off the shoulder. He relishes centre-backs coming tight to him, so that he can roll out of trouble. But he scores all types of goals.”
Kettlewell adds: “We often pigeon-hole players. He is well rounded. We worked with him on his hold-up play and bringing others into play. But we did not ask him to drop in as midfielder. And we did not ask him to play in a wide position, covering the full-back.
“In a world where there are not so many number nines that want to play as proper number nines, who can play back to goal, spin and run in behind, have that natural instinct between the posts, I sometimes look at him as a little bit of a dying breed.”
A proper striker, then, and one who will face the real Haaland when Monaco host Manchester City in the Champions League on Wednesday evening. Biereth scored in Monaco’s previous home game but this will undoubtedly represent another step up.
“He always seems to be able to make that step. The key thing that people who have worked with him will tell you is that whatever level you put him in, whether it is Scotland, Austria, European football, the Champions League, he seems to adjust to the level.”
Monaco’s Mika Biereth in action against Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1
Given that knack, perhaps Biereth could have stayed at Arsenal and succeeded there, eventually? “What he is doing at a top level, he would have to be in a conversation for one that could have filled that void for such a top club like Arsenal,” agrees Kettlewell.
“What I loved about him was just his mentality. Nothing much flusters him, nothing much derails him from what he wants to do.” Now 22 and a Denmark international, the striker who started 2024 at Motherwell is ending 2025 doing it on Europe’s biggest stage.
“Look at how quickly it has happened for him. There are only so many individuals that do that, those guys who hit the ground running, knock the wall down and get to the next level. Mika is that type.” He will have the opportunity to prove it against Manchester City.
