‘Age is just a number and I am in the prime of my life’
Brazilian legend Formiga still going strong, even at 42 PSG midfielder now targets Champions League glory
The oldest scorer in the history of the Women’s Champions League – Paris St-germain’s 42-year-old midfielder Formiga – lets out a peal of laughter when I ask her if anyone in her family is still going like this at her age.
The Brazilian, who will line up in tonight’s quarter-final against Arsenal in San Sebastian, then replies: “No, I don’t know anyone. My dad loved his football. He played a lot of sport – my brothers did, too. But they stopped early. I think I got the genes from my dad, but as far as I know, there’s nobody in my family that played so long. Just me.”
Records tumble off Formiga’s curriculum vitae, which begins in 1993, in Sao Paulo, and takes in seven World Cups – more than any player in either the men’s or women’s game. Born three years before the ban on women’s football was lifted in her Brazil in 1981, she is the first player in her forties to play in the last 16 of the Women’s Champions League, the oldest outfield player in any Uefa competition since the introduction of the Champions League and Europa League, and should she start for
PSG today, she will become the first 42-yearold to play in a Women’s Champions League quarterfinal. She is breaking her own records, extending her leads; adding more days and years on to numbers we may never see emulated.
More than anything, Formiga is fascinated by our fascination with her age – “age is just a number,” she beams, “and I’m in the prime of life. I still feel young” – and our awe at how a player whose first World Cup came aged 17 in 1995 is still cutting it at the top level 25 years on.
“To play in the Women’s Champions League was a major motivation [for joining PSG],” she says. “That was one thing that was lacking in my career. I still have goals that I want to achieve. I’d like to win trophies here. I want to win trophies for Brazil. I want to improve the world of women’s football as much as I can.”
Formiga is also still yet to have her first major injury. She takes part in full training, always, and the same number of sessions as her teammates.
She shrugs that she “doesn’t really do anything differently to the other players”. Perhaps she is a biological miracle, but she points out that she “rests a lot” and eats well. “The body is my tool for my job,” she says. “I know retirement is coming closer. It’s definitely something I think about. You have to stop and think about maybe taking another route.
“I was planning to retire from playing for the national team after the Rio 2016 Olympics – then I carried on. These Olympics this year for Tokyo were postponed for a year. Maybe I’ll end after those Olympics. Maybe I’ll go back to Brazil and play another year.”
Formiga speaks into a webcam from Dax, France, about 60 miles from San Sebastian, where PSG will face Arsenal – the last English team left in the competition – in a onelegged quarter-final.
In the airy lobby of the hotel, the ceiling is dappled by the reflection of the outdoor pool, and Formiga speaks in Portuguese via a club translator who dials in from Lisbon, where he is based for the concurrent men’s competition. “You’re supporting us and we’re supporting you,” she says to him, by way of goodbye.
Of all the women’s clubs in the last eight, perhaps it is PSG who enjoy the greatest crossover between fans of their men’s and women’s clubs. Before alighted the train that would take them to Dax this week, they were greeted by a light show from a pack of ultras unleashing flares outside the station. Chelsea Women can attest to the hostility of the Stade Jean-bouin, PSG Feminine’s home, which in 2019 showed the London club the full gamut of flares, flags and shirtless fans.
Yet Formiga knows better than most that the relationship between men’s and women’s football has historically been far more fraught than this. Her earlier years, growing up in Salvador, were especially painful.
“My mother always supported me,” she says. “My brothers didn’t. I used to get hit by them a lot. I used to get beaten up by them. My neighbours didn’t want me to play. They would shout out things like: ‘She’s going to end up pregnant! She’s not good enough! She’s a tomboy!’. I just laughed. My focus was football, and their insults were fuel for me.”
Formiga’s father died when she was just eight months old, leaving her mum Celeste a single mother of five children before she was 30. “My mum basically brought up five kids all by herself,” Formiga recalls. “She worked day and night. She told me to say strong, to be true to myself, to be honest.
“It was really my mum’s strength that got me here. She inspired me and I mirrored myself on her. All my career, I knew I couldn’t give up from what she taught me. My mother supported my dream to play for the Brazil national team.”
Formiga thinks of her mother each time she plays. “It’s a bit like a film going through my mind,” she explains, “with key people that had an influence. On the pitch, you can’t think that much, as you’re focused on tactics, but when I do, I think of the obstacles I overcame and the people that believed in my potential. My mother was No1 in that respect.”
Now she is a mother herself, of sorts, to PSG’S young players. “It’s a wonderful family, a family a long way away from our own families,” she smiles. “We learn to respect each other’s spaces, but we care so much about each other, always try and raise people’s morale when they’re sad.”
It feels fitting, at this point, to remember that Formiga is not Miraildes Maciel Mota’s real name. It is, rather, a nickname, meaning “ant” in Portuguese, inspired by Formiga’s graceful, unselfish playing style that is akin to how ants work in a colony. Tonight, against Arsenal, PSG will hope likewise to become greater than the sum of their parts.