Marta: A legacy like no other
Joe Rosedon
Attempting to write about Marta is an arduous task. What can be said that has not already been said about a player who has won six FIFA World Player of the Year awards, a Champions League, two Olympic silver medals and six Damallsvenskan titles. She is the all-time top goal scorer at the World Cup with seventeen goals and the first player to score at five consecutive tournaments. Her career has spanned from her home country of Brazil, to being the star of the all-conquering Umeå side of the mid 00’s, to becoming a stalwart of domestic American football.
You could make a robust case that she is the greatest ever to play the women's game. In a 2016 ranking of the best women’s footballers of all time, The Guardian placed her at number one, above icons such as Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach and Birgit Prinz. Eight years later, The Radio Times and Four Four Two rankings concurred. Her impact on the pitch is indelible and has achieved a sense of ubiquity in women’s football that seldom can match.
But it is her off the pitch legacy that will truly define her impact of women’s football. Born in Dois Riachos, Alagoas Brazil, Marta’s trajectory to stardom was akin to countless players in women’s football. With no girls' teams in her vicinity, Marta started by playing with boys. Like many girls this led to resentment from her male counterparts alongside jealousy that a girl was comprehensively better than them at football.
In one particular instance, a coach threatened to pull his team out of a regional tournament if Marta played. This attitude towards Marta was emblematic of women’s football in Brazil. Like many other countries, Brazil banned women’s football between 1941 and 1979. Post 1979, women’s football was hardly encouraged or accepted by either governing body or wider Brazilian culture. It took five years for the national team to play their first game and Women were encouraged to take part in more “feminine” sports. It took until 2013 for the Campeonato Brasileiro de Futebol Feminino to be established.
This first instance of inequality for Marta prepared her for what was to come throughout her career. At age 14, she was scouted by coach Helena Pacheco which led to her signing for Rio De Janeiro based club Vasco da Gama. She spent two seasons at the club before moving to Belo Horizonte to play for Santa Cruz in 2002, where she really began to show glimpses of the player she would become. Santa Cruz club president Carlos Henrique Soares recalled
“Marta arrived very young, but she already stood out from the others”.
By this point, the world of women’s football was acutely aware of Marta’s generational talent, with clubs queuing up to sign her. Her three goals at her debut World Cup in 2003 aged 18 proclaimed her talents onto the world stage.
It made sense that she would join emerging dynasty Umeå IK in 2004. Umeå IK, based in northern Sweden, boasted an impressive mix of homegrown Swedish talent such as Hanna Ljungberg, Frida Östberg and Malin Moström, alongside international stars like Ma Xiaoxu and Ramona Bachman. On the surface it seemed that Marta would fit in comfortably. She did and then some.
In her first season at the club, she managed an impressive 22 goals in as many games, as Umeå won their second Champions League, then known as the UEFA Women’s cup. In the two legged final she scored three goals, dispatching Frankfurt 8-0 on aggregate. The following season, Marta won her first of four Damallsvenskan titles but was unable to retain the UEFA Women’s cup, suffering a disappointing quarter final defeat to fellow Swedish team Djurgårdens IF. Another league title came for Umeå in 2006 and a domestic double in 2007, when Marta won first and only Svenska Cupen. In her final season with Umeå in 2008, Marta won her fourth and final Damallsvenskan title.
During her four years in Sweden, she scored a staggering 111 goals in 103 appearances. Her outstanding performances were rewarded with her first three of six FIFA World Player of the Year Awards between 2006 and 2008.
The pinnacle of this period of individual brilliance unsurprising came on the international stage. Brazil arrived at the 2007 World Cup with Marta at the peak of her powers. They made light work of Group D, beating New Zealand 5-0, hosts China 4-0 and Denmark 1-0. In those three games, Marta scored four goals. Another goal followed, this time from the penalty spot, in a 3-2 victory over Australia in the quarter finals, sending her country into the semifinals against the juggernaut that is the United States.
Going into that game, the US had amassed a 51-game undefeated run and boasted all timers in their team such as Abby Wambach and Kristine Lilly. But Marta managed to make herself the star of the show. A 4-0 bulldozing of the world’s best cemented herself as the star of women’s football. Her second and Brazil’s 4th goal of the game is the epitome of individual brilliance; a deft flick, followed by a sharp change of direction and concluded with a clinical finish.
Alas, for Marta, this was the high point of the tournament. A 2-0 defeat to then reigning champions Germany in the final denied her and Brazil their first World Cup, something that would haunt her for the rest of her career.
Domestically, Marta was on the move. In 2009, Women’s Professional Soccer was launched. Marta agreed to join the Los Angeles Sol. On her arrival she said,
“For me, the most important thing is to be in a place where the best players in the world are playing, and this is what they are trying to do here”.
Alongside Marta, the league was able to attract word class talent such as Kelly Smith, Christine Sinclair and Camille Abily, who played alongside Marta for the Los Angeles Sol .
Unsurprisingly, Marta excelled in Women’s Professional Soccer. In her first season with Los Angeles Sol, she was the top scorer with ten goals alongside three assists. She won individual honours, voted as the Michelle Akers Player of the Year award and was a first team all-star. Ironically, she faced Umeå in the all-star game, scoring in a 4-2 victory.
Her stay with the Sol was brief, the club only lasting for the inaugural WPS season. After a three month return to Brazil with Santos, Marta then joined FC Gold Pride and more success followed. She was able to retain her Golden Boot with nineteen goals and MVP honours from the previous season, but went one step further, winning the 2010 WPS Championship. Obviously, she set up two and scored one of the four goals that Gold Pride managed against the Philadelphia Independence in the final.
Another moved followed, this time relocating to the east coast to play for Western New York Flash, concluding her first spell in America. Her third consecutive Golden Boot soon followed alongside her second WPS Championship. The Western New York Flash were able to assemble a star-studded squad. Marta was able to call players such as Sinclair, Alex Morgan and Caroline Seger her teammates.
The 2011 World Cup followed a similar pattern to Brazil’s performance in 2007. Marta exceled on an individual level. Her four goals drew her level with Prinz as the all-time top goal scorer at Women's World Cup Finals with fourteen goals. But her excellence was not enough to deliver that elusive World Cup title with the US able to exact revenge for 2007, knocking out Brazil in the quarter final. More disappointment was to follow for Marta
Unfortunately, as has been historically common in women’s football, the WPS was a false dawn. In 2012, the league folded. Many reasons have been discussed as to why this happened but issues involving funding and investment have been the most common suggested. There was some suggestion by senior officials at other WPS clubs that Marta was responsible. A 2010 The Equaliser article by Jeff Kassouf stated that Marta’s yearly wage
“was approximately $500,000. That is over 15-times higher than the average WPS salary, which sits around $27,000”
However, to lay blame on Marta’s shoulder would be unfair. She had no agency over how either the league or individual clubs chose to spend their money and any contract signed was signed in good faith, believing the terms would be fulfilled. If anyone should be blamed, the owners and investors were a more suitable target. They aimed to promote the WPS as the best league in the world, yet they should have understood that this would come at a price. If a league that boosted the world's best could succumb to a lack of investment, the fragility of women's football at this time became front and centre.
This would not be the only time that Marta would fall victim to this fragility. It was time to return to the country where she announced herself as a superstar. Numerous clubs in Sweden wanted her signature, including Malmö, Linköping and her former club Umeå. She instead decided to join Tyresö FF alongside New York teammate Seger. Despite a history of housing some of the best players the women’s game has seen, Tyresö had struggled to turn this into winning trophies. The arrival of Marta signified that the club wanted this to change, and they felt that the Brazilian was the one to do this. Indeed, they were right.
Tyresö won their first and, so far, only Damallsvenskan title in 2012, with Marta scoring an impressive twelve goals and sixteen assists on her way to her fifth league title in Sweden. This however was the high point for Marta and Tyresö. After a 2014 Champions League final defeat to Wolfsburg, Tyresö announced their withdrawal from the Damallsvenskan and would not finish the remainder of the season. Marta again was the victim from those at the top of the game. This was becoming a concerning trend in her career.
She remained in Sweden following Tyresö’s collapse, joining then defending champions FC Rosengard. She collected two more Damallsvenskan titles in 2014 and 2015 alongside a Svenska Cupen in 2016. Marta’s return to Sweden eventually proved to be a roaring success, again demonstrating her credentials as an all-time great.
If a return to Sweden proved successful, then a return to American might offer similar results. After the collapse of the WPS, the United States Soccer Federation looked to launch and maintain a successful league at the third attempt. In November 2012, a new league was formed, made up of eight teams. Critically, the league aimed to handle growth and investment in a more sustainable way. Although in the short term, the league may struggle, its long-term health was being prioritised. This would eventually be named the National Women’s Soccer League, and its first game took place in April 2013.
When Marta returned to America, joining the Orlando Pride in 2017, domestic women’s football in America was in a much more stable position. The first four years of the league proved that the NWSL was not going to face the same fate as previous iterations, and with Marta’s return, the league was going from strength to strength.
As the league was going from strength to strength, so was Marta. In her season with Orlando, she won another MVP award, whilst also finishing second in both goals and assists for the 2017 season. The season also saw Orlando reach the playoffs for the first time, only to be defeated by eventual champions Portland Thorns. This currently remains the only time Pride have reached the post season. As of 2024, Marta is the all-time appearance holder and top goal scorer for Orlando Pride.
From a domestic perspective, Marta’s career was untouchable. However, during this period her international career was nothing short of frustrating. Although breaking many individual records, such as in 2015 when she became the all-time top goal scorer in Women’s World Cups and in 2019, achieved the remarkable feet of being the first player to score in five consecutive World Cups, male or female, this did not translate into trophies.
Both tournaments saw Brazil knocked out in the round of 16 to Australia and France. In 2024 she announced her international retirement after the conclusion of the Olympic Games. It could not be more poetic if her remarkable playing career was rounded off with the international success that she so desperately desires.
Photo - https://thesefootballtimes.co/2019/07/17/how-marta-inspired-a-revolution-in-womens-football-both-on-and-off-the-pitch/