Marta already has a magnificent legacy, but this year at Pride was one of her best ever

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Last week, Martha was crazy

Usually, when she’s on the court with her nose at the goal, the three-time Olympic silver medalist visualizes repeating what she’s done many times over her long career. She lets the joy flow through her, down to her left foot and into the ball.

But she got a little heated with the opposition during last weekend NWSL semi-final between her Orlando Pride and that Kansas City Current.

“I tried to be nice most of the time during the game,” Marta told a rapt crowd of reporters around her table at the NWSL championship media day on Thursday.

There was a player on Current with whom she traded nicely, according to the Brazilian. But the player, Marta declined to name, was “a little bit of a diva”.

“And I said, ‘Wow, okay. You pissed me off. I will go one-on-one against you,’” Marta said.

Marta picked up the ball in the center circle after going forward Barbra Banda stuck it away from the current defender Kayla Sharples. Marta faked both Sharples and central defense Alana Cook when they tried to challenge her, they jumped past the goalie Almuth Schult and got shot off before the outside back Hailey Mace could do anything and scored the Pride’s crucial third goal in the 82nd minute of an eventual 3-2 win.

It was another reminder, as if necessary, that Marta really is oone of the best to ever play.

She celebrated with mixed emotions, anger and joy fighting for dominance. But for Marta, it felt like so many other goal celebrations before. At media day, she almost reached for her phone to pull up a photo of her celebrating a goal against Brazil to compare to what turned out to be the game-winning goal that sent her to her first NWSL final.

“Honestly, what I see is maybe we should try to upset her. She turns on a whole other level,” Pride teammate Morgan Gautrat said with a laugh.

Other Pride players talked about seeing the goal on repeat from different angles, but none expressed surprise. They see it regularly.

“Nothing has changed,” said Marta. “I have passion for this game and that’s why I’m still playing.”

Like the potential of finally earning an Olympic gold medal back this summer with Brazil at age 38, Marta doesn’t need an NWSL championship trophy to cement her legacy as a force in U.S. women’s soccer. She has already won a title and a shield here in 2010 with FC Gold Pride during the previous professional league era of WPS. And the Pride already captured a trophy this year, winning the NWSL shield for most regular season points.

She reiterated Thursday that she plans to play for another two years she is a free agent heading into the NWSL offseason. But when she finally hangs up her boots, Marta has one of the best chances for an international player to enter the National Soccer Hall of Fame based on a club career.

This season is special though. Marta said it is the best she has ever had at club level, even compared to her days in Sweden with one of the strongest teams in Europe at the time, Umeå IK.

“If I achieve this big goal with this great team, it’s good,” said Marta. “If not, this season was so special from the beginning to now that it’s not even close to the best dream I can imagine.”

When asked during the final press conference before the finals, with this NWSL championship in the middle of her illustrious career, Marta emphatically raised one finger: number one.

“I think because of the way we did during the season from the beginning to now, it’s something very special that I’ve never had before at any other club that I’ve played for,” she said. “It’s hard to win the games at first (in the NWSL), like almost every game.”

Marta joined the Pride in 2017, a year after their inaugural season as an expansion team. The team had some great talent, from Alex Morgan to Ali Krieger. They had good results in Marta’s debut year and reached the playoffs. However, the Pride never finished higher than seventh in the following five seasons (not including 2020, when a regular season was not played due to the pandemic). In 2023, they achieved seventh place again, missing the play-offs by two goals in the standings on the final day.

“(Marta) remembers the tough times. She remembers when we were the laughing stock of the league, head coach Seb Hines said Friday. “Now she’s enjoying it. Now everything is connected. We have a great culture. We have good players here. We’ve got structure from top to bottom now, and then she probably just reminds herself of how it was before and just enjoys every moment of how it is now.”

As much as the external focus is on Marta this week, especially after that semi-final goal, she doesn’t feel the external pressure at all. She is not thrown out by the high demand for her from the media or by sitting down for a few video features during a championship week. She has never experienced the craziness of an NWSL championship as a finalist, but she has been to plenty of world championships and BEER. She is also not focused on herself as an individual.

“It’s not this player, (or) this player, it’s the team,” she said. “We do it together. That’s exactly how it should be. It’s not about the one or two players, it’s about the project. It’s about the work that everyone puts in. If the trophy comes to us, great. If not , we will continue to work hard.”

From the outside, it’s easy to assume that the team would love to win a championship title for Marta. And while that’s not inaccurate, Pride general manager Haley Carter said, it’s also not the only internal narrative driving them. From her front row seat, Carter said Marta embodies the team culture every day and that this is a group of players who truly love each other.

“That’s actually what makes her great,” Carter said at media day. “That’s what gives her legendary status: it’s all about the team. It’s not about, ‘I’ve never won an NWSL title. I’ve never won the league’. It’s not about that. It’s about getting the team in the room to succeed. That’s her priority.”

Marta has also been decisive on the pitch for Pride. So much of her success this year, including her nine goals and one assist in the regular season, as well as her two playoff goals so far, comes not just from her return to form, but a slightly more advanced position on the court. She has been closer to the mark and adding Banda to the mix only helped.

Looking at her touches over the past three seasons, this year the Pride are getting essentially 12 percent more from Marta in the final third.

It has worked, to say the least.

There are also still the intangibles. And for a player of Marta’s stature and legacy, they are impossible to overlook.

“She’s given so much to this club. She’s given absolutely everything. She hasn’t been to another team in this league and so that’s part of her. She knows what it means to play for this team. She knows what it means to play for this badge,” Hines said Friday in her pregame press conference. “Take away all the individual dribbling and shooting and stuff like that, her fundamental football players when you see someone of stature do what there is no question for others to do it, young, old, whatever.”

Tonight mod Washington Spirit at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, Orlando’s captain will lead her team one last time in 2024. She will almost certainly face a hostile crowd, including locals who haven’t forgotten last week’s goal or Marta who fired them in the Pride’s 2- 1 win over Strømmen there before the Olympic break.

But there will be at least one person in the stands who has never seen her play before in America: her mother.

Marta said on Thursday that she had finally managed to help arrange a visa for her mother to attend a match in the US and that a family member had managed to take two weeks off to travel with her and help her to get around. For Marta, it was the perfect time for her mother to finally see her play a professional game in the United States. Sure, they had to run around Thursday morning and buy more cold weather gear for her mom so she’d be prepared for the November Kansas City cold, but it was all worth it.

“She told me this year, ‘If I don’t come to America and then I die, I will die so sad’.” Marta couldn’t help but mimic her own disbelieving face at the heightened levels of maternal guilt. And I said, ‘Mom! Why do you have to be like this?’.”

All this week, Marta has been nothing but smiles and jokes, soaking in a game that is the culmination of her eight years in Orlando. However, despite the clear joy coming from the Brazilian, she may also be a little sour tonight and provide another moment of magic this season.

This article originally appeared in Athletics.

Orlando Pride, Brazil, Soccer, NWSL

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