Marta’s blueprint for football’s future
Exclusive interview Brazilian explains to Katie Whyatt why she felt compelled to deliver her moving speech at last year’s World Cup, and what must change in the women’s game
One does not expect a Friday evening to begin with a private concert from the greatest female footballer of all time. Yet here we are. From her living room in Orlando, Marta, the six-time Fifa World Player of the Year, slides off her grey settee and heads for the instruments strung along the walls of her living room.
There is a ukulele, four guitars and a banjo uke. She reaches for the smallest guitar, a sandy-coloured tenor, and strums furiously, humming a Brazilian samba as her shaggyhaired black chihuahua watches on.
Over the course of an hour with the 34-year-old – via a Zoom call – we discuss a performance far more public, but one that is undoubtedly more intimate. At the World Cup last summer, following Brazil’s last-16 2-1 defeat by France, Marta gave a post-match interview – nay, a rallying cry – that shook the women’s game. Eyes straining with suppressed tears, her voice cracked. “The future of women’s football is depending on you to survive,” she bellowed into the TV cameras. “There won’t be a Marta for ever. Think about what I’m saying.”
Marta cries every time she watches the video. “Those words were actually motivated by the moment, by what I was feeling there,” she says. “I looked to the side and I saw one of my teammates, one of the younger ones, crying. I got emotional, and that’s why I said those words. It’s because I believe the next generation have to work harder.
“Women’s soccer, especially, we need to keep sending this message because we need the support. For women’s soccer to have the rights, they need to persevere; they can’t give up. That’s why, at that moment, I had to say that message.
To leave a message is very important because I dedicated my whole life to the sport.
“Of course, in a team sport, not 100 per cent of the people will agree with you. You’ll find athletes who will look for excuses when they lose. But 99 per cent agreed with it. There were some athletes in the United States who asked me if I had practised that speech. But I’m a very spontaneous person; I would never be able to do that.”
Today, Marta is the same fusion of passion: she hurtles through sentences, effervescing with emotion, then stops, placidly stroking her dog while the translator speaks. Then she will remember something. Her eyes will brighten. The figurative light bulb pings above her head and she zooms into an encore.
The speech was not the only reason Marta went viral that day. She had worn deep scarlet lipstick to show that her team-mates had to leave blood on the pitch. She woke up and turned to her room-mate Camila: “‘I want to wear something different, something powerful, something strong,’” she recalls. “I went to the bathroom and I tried the lipstick on. We laughed. For me, it represents the power of a woman. We are playing a sport that is very aggressive, very strong. Therefore, for a lot of people, it’s still very masculine. But I feel that when I wear the lipstick, we can show our feminine side with it. The lipstick became something powerful.” She taps her lips to show me she wears the same shade most days now.
Marta’s movement – the chicane twists and serpentine turns, the whirr of shoulder drops – is unrivalled in the women’s game. The defender lying beaten in her slipstream is Marta’s calling card and at the 2007 World Cup she showed it to the world. Brazil overcame the US 4-0 in the semi-final and Marta scored a goal that she dubbed, at the time, her “most beautiful” finish of all. The images of Marta flicking the ball from her right foot to her left, swiping it behind the first defender before literally leaving a second challenger on the floor, were shown on the BBC. Brazil lost the final, against Germany, but Marta had gone mainstream.
She grew up in Dois Riachos in the state of Alagoas, with a population of a little under 12,000 on Brazil’s eastern coastline. Raised by a single mother of four – her father left when she was a baby – her mother was forced to work two jobs and was usually too busy to watch Marta play, but she would often take her daughter to church.
“When I was young, eight to nine, I would always go to church and I would hear them play the guitar,” Marta says. “My dream was to play at church. When I was 15, I got my first guitar, started to do some research. I never took any classes. I learnt it all by myself. I’m good, good at soccer, [but] I just play at instruments.”
England’s Nikita Parris has cited Marta as one of her first role models in the women’s game. For more than a decade, Marta has flown the flag. But what does she want for the game’s future?
“We have to stop comparing women’s soccer with men’s, first of all. It hurts when I hear this. We see people saying: ‘Marta won the trophy for best player in the world six times, but she never won a World Cup.’ Well, you have Messi and Ronaldo winning the same title, but they also never won a World Cup. But the way that they mention it is different.”
Now settled at Orlando Pride, Marta has found a kindred spirit in league rival Megan Rapinoe, of OL Reign. She voted for Rapinoe to win the Ballon d’or. “It is important to give voice to those that don’t have it,” Marta says.
“During the World Cup, I ended my contract with one of my partners, decided I was not going to accept this proposal. I said: ‘I will use this moment to give voice to the women who are used by so many brands – they’re getting equipment to play and train but nothing financially.’ For that, a lot of them were able to sign some contracts. Not me, but that’s the importance of us athletes: to use our voice to give them voice, which will give them more opportunities.”
Marta was “ready” to play at the Olympics before Covid-19 forced its postponement. “Now I’ll have more time to prepare, but if it doesn’t happen next year, then I’ll see,” she says.
In her 42-year-old Brazilian team-mate Formiga, she has someone similarly Peter Pan-like. While they do not talk much – Formiga is very reserved and does not even have Whatsapp – Formiga is Marta’s motivation.
“I like to mirror [her] myself, take that as a challenge. Just looking at how she lives life is enough – she doesn’t have to say anything.” Marta rises to the subject of ageism, and underestimating older female athletes. “I would not trade having Formiga on my team just because another player is younger.”
Marta has kept fit doing bike rides during the pandemic, but she worries about the realities in other countries. She gives a final, stark warning: “We have come a long way with this sport. It would be going back in the past.”
Like that speech at the World Cup, you hope the world is listening.