Marta and the Myth of the Equal Game

It's easy to talk about greatness in football. Fans love to argue about it. But greatness, in the case of Marta Vieira da Silva, isn't up for debate. She's not just the best Brazilian women's footballer of all time—she's Brazil's top scorer across the board. That's right: more than Pelé, more than Neymar. And yet, you'd be forgiven for not seeing her name written in gold across stadium facades or FIFA montages.

Numbers alone don't tell the story of what Marta overcame. Because women's football, despite the shifting tides, is still too often a footnote in the global game—especially in Brazil, where the women's national team wasn't even officially allowed to exist until 1983. Marta didn't just score goals; she scored them while dragging an entire institution towards something resembling parity.

More Than Numbers

119 goals in over 200 appearances. Six-time FIFA World Player of the Year. The top scorer in World Cup history—men's or women's. It's a record that speaks for itself. But records don't win respect in a country where women were legally banned from playing football until the early 1980s, deemed too "masculine" and "unsuitable" by the military regime.

Marta grew up nutmegging boys on a dusty pitch in Alagoas, in flip-flops, and never stopped. At 14, she moved to Rio, sleeping on the floor of a teammate's apartment, washing training kits to pay her way. When that wasn't enough, she left Brazil entirely—washing dishes in a Swedish restaurant by day, training with Umeå IK by night. The girl who would become the world's greatest footballer scrubbed plates for pocket money because her own country couldn't pay her to play.

If Pelé was "The King," then Marta is the republic—not inherited royalty but earned sovereignty. Built not on glamour, but grit. She represents not just the excellence of Brazilian football but the sheer force of will required for a woman to be recognised as a footballer in Brazil. A republic where citizenship is claimed, not granted.

Football in Lipstick and Blood

In 2019, when Brazil were knocked out of the Women's World Cup, Marta didn't do the usual tearful exit. She stood in front of the world, eyes blazing, blood-red lipstick pristine despite 90 minutes of battle. "It's wanting more, it's training more, it's taking care of yourself more," she told the next generation of girls.

"Think about it. Cry in the beginning so you can smile at the end."

That lipstick wasn't vanity—it was armour. A declaration that she could be brilliant at football without erasing her femininity. That she refused to apologise for taking up space in a man's game while looking exactly like herself. The image burned into every young girl watching: you don't have to choose between being fierce and being female.

It was a rallying cry disguised as a goodbye speech. It wasn't just about training harder. It was about surviving a system that offered less money, less infrastructure, and less credit. In Marta's world, being brilliant wasn't enough—you also had to be relentless, marketable, charming, and grateful. Always grateful.

Boys' Club Corruption

While Marta was breaking records abroad, the men running Brazilian football were breaking laws at home. In 2025, the president of the CBF, Ednaldo Rodrigues, was booted from office by court order—after it was revealed that the deal securing his re-election had been signed by someone medically unfit to consent. The whole thing reeked of document forgery and bureaucratic backdoor dealings, the kind that would be laughable if they didn't have such real consequences for the sport.

This wasn't about mismanaging a press release or bungling a VAR decision. It was yet another reminder that Brazil's football institutions are still ruled by the same toxic macho culture that has always treated the women's game as ornamental—or worse, irrelevant. The same closed-circle governance that couldn't keep corruption out of stadium construction or broadcasting rights also couldn't stomach the idea of accountability. That's the environment Marta had to rise through: not just against defenders, but against an entire structure designed to exclude people like her.

The Ghost of What Could Have Been

Imagine Marta in the same system that produced Neymar: millions in academy development, sponsorship deals from adolescence, full media backing, and institutional celebration. Instead, when she was breaking through, the entire Brazilian women's league operated on a budget smaller than what PSG paid Neymar in a single month. Players worked second jobs. Clubs folded mid-season. The best facilities were reserved for boys.

Marta had to leave Brazil because the women's league couldn't support her talent. She went to Sweden, became Umeå's star, won the Champions League. Then the US, where she lifted Orlando Pride from mediocrity to excellence, her 20-yard screamers becoming YouTube legends. Always an expat, never a hometown hero—except in the hearts of the girls who saw her as proof that football could be for them too.

The Brazilian Football Confederation began taking women's football seriously only after Marta's fame became undeniable. But it was always too little, too late. A generation was lost to neglect. Even now, investment and visibility remain shaky, sponsorship conditional on success—something never demanded of the men's team. Especially not the ones presiding over scandals.

“O futebol feminino precisa ser mais valorizado, porra!”

Legacy in Motion

At 39, Marta is still rewriting the script. There may not have been a golden farewell at the Maracanã—because she hasn't left the stage. Instead of walking into the sunset, she returned in 2025 to help Brazil lift another Copa América, proving that icons don't follow the script—they write their own.

Her influence runs deeper than silverware. You see it in the generation that followed: Debinha, who calls Marta "my inspiration and my guide." Ary Borges, who watched that 2019 World Cup speech and decided to become a professional. Bia Zaneratto, who grew up with Marta posters on her bedroom wall. You hear it in the chants from the stands and the conversations on backstreet pitches where girls now play without apology.

For decades, girls were told football wasn't for them. Marta didn't just challenge that lie—she torched it with every goal, every nutmeg, every refusal to disappear quietly.

The Revolution Will Be Nutmegged

In the end, Marta's greatness isn't about beating Pelé's numbers or racking up World Cup goals. It's about turning the whole pitch around—about challenging the myth that football is naturally male and proving, ball at feet, that the game belongs to anyone who can play it.

The question now isn't whether we'll see another Marta. It's whether we'll build a football culture where girls don't need to be as extraordinary, stubborn, and self-sacrificing just to be allowed to play. Where talent is nurtured regardless of gender. Where young players can dream of the Maracanã without first having to exile themselves to Europe.

Where greatness is recognised when it arrives, not decades later when it's too obvious to ignore.

That's a game worth fighting for.