Women's soccer's greatest player has never won a major international title, so will that change when Selecao faces the USWNT in the Paris 2024 final?
Back in 2004, women’s soccer was not in the place it is now. There was limited media coverage, a serious lack of broadcasting and few opportunities for its athletes to be full-time professionals. Opposition scouting, then, was far from easy – and yet, when Australia prepared to come up against Brazil at the Olympic Games, the Matildas’ staff had full knowledge of the big threat they needed to be aware of. That was an 18-year-old by the name of Marta.
Focusing on one player wasn’t something the team usually did before a match. “Why were we actually doing video on her and breaking down her game specifically? That was a bit unique,” Sacha Wainwright, the former Australia defender, recalls. “We didn’t usually focus on individual players as such, maybe a couple of the Americans and then there was Marta. I think she only had maybe 10 or 15 international caps at that stage.”
The reasons for such emphasis became apparent quickly. With just 34 minutes on the clock, Marta cut inside from the right and found the back of the net with her deadly left foot, just as the Australia staff had feared. “We were on our toes, mainly trying to counter her in that game, and it didn't work,” Wainwright laughs.
Over the last 20 years, Marta has rendered plenty more defenders’ efforts futile with otherworldly talent that leaves few questioning her status as the greatest player in the history of the women’s game. Now aged 38, she has the chance to win a first major international title at the final attempt when Brazil faces the United States women's national team in Saturday's Olympic gold medal match. Will it be the perfect send off for this icon of the game?
Selin Kuralay'Holy sh*t!'
While some players in Australia’s pre-match meeting back in 2004 might’ve been surprised by the focus that was being placed on this unpredictable teenager, Selin Kuralay knew first hand that it was necessary. Just two years prior, she was in the Australia squad for FIFA's first-ever women’s youth tournament, the Under-19 Women's Championship, at which Brazil was Australia's quarter-final opponent. It was there that she first encountered Marta.
“She was quite clearly the best player at that tournament. It was kind of the first opportunity for her to be showcasing to the world that her skills were that much better than the rest of us, I would say,” Kuralay, who scored in the eventual 4-3 defeat to Brazil, tells GOAL with a chuckle. “We were taking pictures with her. Any coach's pet hate is to have his players taking pictures with the other team's. I just remember that we were just all in awe at her technical ability, the way that she played the game and how amazing she was. It's not often that you come across players where you're like, 'Holy sh*t, they are that good!'”
AdvertisementGetty ImagesGreeting the world stage
It was a reputation that would be enhanced over the next two years. The first step in that sense came in 2003 when, aged 17, Marta showed the biggest stage in the sport glimpses of her talent for the first time, at that summer's World Cup.
In the group stages against Norway, she picked up the ball some 30 yards out, danced past four opponents and teed up Maycon, before eventually pouncing on the rebound of her team-mate's saved shot to put Brazil 3-1 up against the reigning Olympic champion. It was one of three goals she netted in a tournament that ended with Brazil beaten by eventual finalists Sweden in the quarters.
AFP via Getty Images'Galactico' of women's soccer
A few months later, another significant milestone in her young career came when she joined Swedish club Umea, “the Galacticos of women’s football” at that time. There was a lot of money in the Damallsvenskan, Sweden’s top-flight, throughout the 2000s and early 2010s and its teams thrived in Europe, with Marta able to help Umea win the UEFA Women’s Cup, now the Champions League, in her first season.
“Of course, I knew about her,” Andree Jeglertz, the club’s head coach at the time, told GOAL previously. “Our club director, Roland Arnqvist, always did things that people said he couldn't do. That gave him a little bit of a trigger. He took this as his biggest challenge to get Marta to Sweden and he managed [to do it]. They landed in half a meter snow in Umea. That was quite cool.
“You could see the technique, you could see how she solved things on the field, but as a coach, already then you were frustrated because she didn't do exactly as you said. She did things that us coaches would think, 'My God, we can never get her to understand how we want to play and what we want to do', but she solved every situation her way. That was something that I've learned in my coaching career, that not everybody can be exactly the same kind of player. It's the one that's breaking the pattern that will win the games and the trophies for you.”
Getty ImagesMaking her mark
Marta would prove to be a game-changer at the 2004 Olympic Games, too, a tournament at which Rosana, her former Brazil team-mate, believes she really announced herself. “She was on everyone's lips after the first game against Australia, where she really turned up and showed the phenomenal player that she had become,” she told GOAL.
“I remember there was an aura around her already and that was her first Olympics,” Wainwright, Australia’s left-back that day, says. “She'd come near you and you were just like… 'Need to concentrate, need to keep her out wide, don't let her cut in'. She could be so dangerous. I guess it's the magic of the player she is. I can remember it. It's so memorable just who she was already, back then, and then she's gone and obviously had this massive career. At that time, and I was a more senior player, I felt like, 'This is a test of who you are as a player'. It was already that you'd be coming up against one of the best in the world.”
Going into that tournament, Brazil wasn't among the favorites to win gold, yet it came incredibly close. The South Americans faced the United States in the final and were left feeling aggrieved when a big penalty shout went by in extra-time, before Abby Wambach scored the gold medal-winning goal. “Even speaking to some Americans afterwards, they strongly believed that we deserved the gold, by the way we were playing and by the enthusiasm we had and the desire we had,” Rosana recalled.