They called her ‘Pele in skirts’. Now they call Marta by her name

“Show don’t tell” is one of the oldest rules in the writing book, and there really is no alternative way to do Marta justice. One can read in as many words that the Brazilian’s control of a football is preternatural, her playmaking skills ingenious and her on-field intelligence off the IQ chart.

But it is better to experience Marta than hear about her. To watch the goal she scored against the United States late in the 2007 World Cup semi-final and feel what it must have been like for poor Tina Ellertson when the Brazilian, with her back to goal, received the ball and casually flicked it past one side of the American’s body, before darting around the other side to retrieve it.

A second later you find yourself empathising with defender Cat Whitehill, who became so disoriented by the attacker’s sudden change of direction inside the box that she fell over her own feet and did not recover balance until the goalkeeper was already beaten. You empathise because you are in awe, and only the full sensory overload can get you to that place.

The irony was that Ellertson was her side’s fastest player, and had been brought on at 3-0 down with the specific remit of marking the 21-year-old Marta one-on-one to try to take her out of the game. The end score in Hangzhou was 4-0, and the US’s 51-game unbeaten run ended as Marta was applauded off by Chinese spectators.

While Brazil subsequently lost the final to Germany, Marta was awarded the Golden Ball and Golden Shoe, and that semi-final goal – one of her seven across the tournament – lives on as possibly the greatest in Women’s World Cup history. And there are many from which to choose. She alone has 17 from 23 appearances in six World Cups – the all-time record across the women’s and men’s editions.

For the country she captains, the goal tally is a record 126 from 201 caps. Until three days ago, those numbers might have been frozen in time and splattered with the wrong type of tears. The greatest women’s player of all time is now 38, and her sixth Olympics is her last before international retirement by the year’s end. Regardless of results, Paris 2024 would be a celebration.

Marta’s immediate emotion at being sent off in Brazil’s Olympics group game against Spain.Credit: Getty Images

That was until midway through Brazil’s last group-stage match against Spain, when Marta received a direct red card. Her visible dismay was instant, and conveyed the awful awareness that her final offering at a major tournament could be a dangerous high challenge on Olga Carmona. Spain exploited their numerical advantage and scored twice in the second half, leaving Brazil with a nervous wait on whether other results would fall their way and grant them passage to the quarter-finals as one of the top-two third-placed teams.

They squeaked through as the second, with a mountain to climb and a skipper about to serve a two-game suspension. Recent form and results said the run might end with France in the final eight. Last year, a transitioning team with growing pains bowed out of the World Cup in the group stage. Here, however, the squad’s fresh faces overcame the odds and injury setbacks and defeated the Games hosts 1-0, before upsetting World Cup champions Spain in the semis. The 4-2 win secured progression to a first major final since 2008 and will deliver their returning talisman a proper farewell and a shot at a maiden Olympic gold medal against Emma Hayes’ rejuvenated United States.

“We did it for her,” Angelina – a teammate of Marta’s for Brazil and Orlando Pride – said ahead of Saturday’s decider at Parc des Princes. “We want to give her a really great send-off. It was a dream of mine to play with Marta, and now it’s a dream come true.”

It is a sentiment shared by their opponents. “I’ve always looked up to her, we all kind of do,” Trinity Rodman said on Thursday. Fellow forward Sophia Smith expressed indescribable gratitude for Marta’s sustained advocacy for young players. “We wouldn’t be here without Marta, who changed the game forever and continues to change the game,” she said.

Marta wearing her trademark red lipstick while playing against France during the 2019 World Cup.Credit: AP

The women’s game is unrecognisable from the days when the six-time FIFA world player of the year grew up playing ankle-hacking street football with the local boys in the small northwestern Brazilian town of Dois Riachos. From the point of her initial discovery by a coach at 14 and subsequent move to Rio to join her first women’s team, Vasco da Gama, it was only two years before she had made her senior international debut, and three before her first World Cup in 2003.

Her talent drew a cult following, which transformed into a mainstream following at the Maracana in 2007, when Marta contributed two goals and two assists in Brazil’s 5-0 Pan Am Games final against the US and demanded the attention of not only the 70,000 packed into Rio’s iconic venue, but also of Pele. He personally called her to offer his congratulations to the young woman who also wore the No.10, and told her he agreed with her increasingly popular nickname, “Pele in skirts”.

“We showed to the country what women’s soccer can do, what potential it has,” Marta, who finished the Games with a tournament-high 12 goals from five outings, said in the post-match press conference. “Of course there is prejudice, and that makes things much more difficult for women, not only in soccer but many other sports. We are trying to find our place.”

Marta is comforted by fans after Brazil’s Rio Olympics semi-final loss to Sweden at the Maracana.Credit: AP

It was a key point of traction for women’s football in Brazil, and Marta soon became – and remains – the first woman to leave her footprints in the Maracana’s hallowed hall of fame, alongside a select few compatriots including Pele, Ronaldo, Garrincha and Jairzinho, and foreigners including Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Zinedine Zidane and Franz Beckenbauer.

Her deification among the football gods was complete. Three months after that came the 2007 World Cup and that semi-final goal, and the singular name Marta solidified in the international consciousness, especially in Sweden and the US, where she has played the majority of her club football. That is not to say her fame matched her male contemporaries – the women’s game was, compared to the space it commands today, in its embryonic stages. But her profile slowly picked away at the prejudice she spoke of, and her longevity has supported an upward growth trajectory over multiple generations.

Her humility belies the extraordinary list of accolades, but she is also known for relentlessly driving the standards of those around her. At the 2019 World Cup, that passion erupted straight down the barrel of an on-field TV camera after the full-time whistle confirmed Brazil had been knocked out in the round of 16 by hosts France.

“It’s wanting more. It’s training more. It’s taking care of yourself more,” she said. “It’s being ready to play 90 plus 30 minutes. This is what I ask of the girls. There’s not going to be a Formiga forever. There’s not going to be a Marta forever. There’s not going to be a Cristiane. The women’s game depends on you to survive. Think about that. Value it more. Cry in the beginning so you can smile in the end.”

In April, after announcing her impending retirement, Marta touched on her desired legacy. “I want people to remember me as a player who, inside the pitch and outside the pitch, fights a lot and really cares about this game,” she told The Women’s Game podcast. “I’ll give everything.”

A more symbolic legacy can be found in the subtle shift in language as women’s football became respected in its own right. Marta used to be “Pele in skirts”. Now Marta is just Marta. Whether Brazil win Olympic gold or not.

Brazil take on the United States on Sunday at 1am (AEST) in the women’s gold-medal match.

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