KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Last week Marta was crazy.
When she stands on the sphere and appears toward the goal, the three-time Olympic silver medalist normally imagines herself repeating what she has done persistently throughout her long profession. She lets the enjoyment flow through her, right down to her left foot and into the ball.
However, she got a bit of heated against the opponents through the NWSL semifinal between her Orlando Pride and the Kansas City Current last weekend.
“I tried to be nice most of the time during the game,” Marta told an enthusiastic audience of reporters at her table on the NWSL Championship Media Day on Thursday.
According to the Brazilian, there was a player at Current with whom she had a very good chat. But the player – Marta didn’t need to name any names – was “a bit of a diva”.
“And I said, ‘Wow, all right. You made me angry. “I’m going to play you one-on-one,” Marta said.
Marta picked up the ball in the middle circle after forward Barbra Banda pushed it away from current defender Kayla Sharples. Marta deceived each Sharples and center back Alana Cook as they tried to challenge her, shot past goalkeeper Almuth Schult and shot before full-back Hailie Mace could do anything about it, scoring the Pride's decisive third goal within the 82nd minute, who ultimately scored three goals -2 win.
It was one other reminder, as if crucial, that Marta truly is one in all the best to ever play.
She celebrated the battle for dominance with mixed emotions, anger and joy. But for Marta it felt identical to so many other goal celebrations before. On media day, she almost reached for her phone to tug up a photograph of her celebrating a goal against Brazil to check it to the game-winning goal that sent her to her first NWSL final.
“Honestly, I think we should probably try to make her angry. She’s on a whole different level,” Pride teammate Morgan Gautrat said with amusing.
Other Pride players spoke of watching the repeated goal from different angles, but nobody expressed surprise. You see it frequently.
“Nothing has changed,” Marta said. “I have a passion for this game and that’s why I still play it.”
Much just like the potential to finally win an Olympic gold medal with Brazil this summer at age 38, Marta doesn't need an NWSL championship trophy to cement her legacy as a force in American women's skilled soccer. She previously won a title and shield here in 2010 with FC Gold Pride within the WPS's previous skilled league era. And the Pride have already won a trophy this yr, winning the NWSL Shield for many regular season points.
She reiterated Thursday that she plans to play for 2 more years despite entering the NWSL offseason as a free agent. But when she finally hangs up her soccer cleats, Marta has the very best probability of being inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame due to her club profession as a world player.
Marta warms up at practice before the NWSL Championship. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
However, this season is special. Marta said it was the very best thing she had ever achieved at club level, even in comparison with her time in Sweden with one in all Europe's strongest teams on the time, Umeå IK.
“If I achieve this big goal with this great team, that will be good,” said Marta. “If not, this season has been so special from the start that it doesn’t come close to being the best dream I could imagine.”
When Marta was asked at the ultimate press conference before the ultimate where this NWSL Championship ranked in her illustrious profession, she emphatically raised her finger: primary.
“I think because of the way we have played the season from the beginning until now, it is something very special that I have never experienced before at any other club I have played for,” she said . “It’s difficult to even win the games (in the NWSL), like almost all the games.”
Marta joined the Pride in 2017, a yr into their first season as an expansion team. The team had some notable talent, from Alex Morgan to Ali Krieger. They achieved good ends in Marta's debut yr and reached the playoffs. However, the Pride never finished higher than seventh in the next five seasons (excluding 2020, when a daily season was not played because of the pandemic). In 2023 they again reached seventh place and missed the playoffs on the ultimate day of the match with a difference of two goals within the table.
“(Marta) remembers the difficult times. She remembers when we were the laughing stock of the league,” head coach Seb Hines said on Friday. “Now she’s enjoying it. Now everything is coming together. We have a great culture. We have great players here. We have a structure now from top to bottom, and so she probably just remembers how it was before and just enjoys every single moment of how it is now.”
As much as Marta is within the highlight from outside this week, especially after the goal within the semi-final, she doesn't feel any of the surface pressure in any respect. She isn't deterred by the media's high demand for her, nor by the proven fact that she sits down for just a few video segments during championship week. She has never experienced the madness of an NWSL Championship as a finalist, but has been to quite a few World Championships and Olympics. Nor does she give attention to herself as a person.
“It’s not this player, (or) that player, it’s the team,” she said. “We do it together. That's exactly how it should be. It's not about one or two players, but about the project. It's about the work everyone has done. If the trophy comes to us, that will be great. If not, we will continue to work hard.”
Marta celebrates along with her teammates after scoring a goal against Current. (Mike Watters/Imagn Images)
From the surface looking in, it's easy to assume that the team would like to win a league title for Marta. And while that's not inaccurate, said Pride CEO Haley Carter, it's also not the one internal narrative driving it. From her front row seat, Carter said Marta embodies the team culture day-after-day and that it is a group of players that really love one another.
“That’s what really makes them great,” Carter said at media day. “That’s what makes them legendary: everything revolves around the team. It's not about, 'I've never won an NWSL title.' I've never won the league.' That's not what it's about. It's about putting the team in the room to be successful. That’s their priority.”
Marta was also crucial on the sphere for the Pride. Much of her success this yr, including her nine goals and one assist through the regular season and her two playoff goals to date, has come not only from her getting back into form, but in addition from being in a rather higher position on the sphere . She was closer to the mark and the addition of Banda only helped.
If you have a look at her touches over the past three seasons, the Pride are essentially getting 12 percent more from Marta in the ultimate third this yr.
It worked, to say the least.
There are also the intangible values. And for a player of Marta's stature and legacy, these are inconceivable to disregard.
“She has given so much to this club. She gave absolutely everything. She's never been with another team in this league and that's why it's part of her. She knows what it means to play for this team. She knows what it means to play for that badge,” Hines said at his pregame press conference on Friday. “Take away all the individuality of dribbling and shooting and so on, their fundamentals of football, when you see someone with stature doing it, there's no question whether anyone else should do it, young, old, whatever.”
Tonight against the Washington Spirit at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, the Orlando captain will lead her team one last time in 2024. She will almost definitely face a hostile crowd, including locals who haven't forgotten last week's goal or Marta, who silences them The Pride's 2-1 win over Current there before the Olympic break.
But within the stands shall be at the least one person she's never seen play in America before: her mother.
Marta said Thursday that she had finally managed to assist her mother get a visa to attend a game within the United States and that a member of the family had managed to take two weeks off to be along with her to travel and help her get around. For Marta, it was the proper time for her mother to finally see her play in an expert game within the United States. Sure, they’d to run around Thursday morning buying her mom more cold weather gear so she may very well be prepared for the Kansas City cold in November, however it was price it.
“She told me this year, 'If I don't come to America and then die, I'll die so sadly.'” Marta couldn't help but mimic her own expression of disbelief on the mounting maternal guilt. “And I said, ‘Mom! Why do you have to be like that?'”
All week, Marta has just smiled and joked as she immersed herself in a game that represents the highlight of her eight years in Orlando. But despite the plain joy emanating from the Brazilian, she may additionally get a bit of offended tonight and supply one other magical moment this season.
image credit : www.nytimes.com