Brazil takes on the USA in Saturday’s women’s football gold-medal match at the Paris Olympics. Out superstar Marta will be on the minds of many fans.
This is the sixth and final Olympic Games for Marta, a legend in the women’s soccer world who stakes a claim as possibly the greatest female soccer player of all time.
“There is a moment when we have to understand that the time has come,” Marta said earlier this year while announcing her final Olympic Games. “I am very calm about this because I see with great optimism this development that we are having in relation to young [players].”
At the height of her football playing career, Marta was clearly the best player in the world, winning five straight FIFA World Player of the Year awards, from 2006 to 2010. She also won the Best FIFA Women’s Player award in 2018.
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Yet she’s never won an Olympic gold medal or a FIFA Women’s World Cup title.
It’s the United States that has twice denied Marta and her Brazil teammates Olympic gold. In each of her first two Olympic Games, the USWNT beat Brazil in the gold-medal match by one goal.
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Since then, as Marta emerged as the world’s best player in women’s soccer, Brazil stagnated. Unlike basketball where championships tend to follow the best couple of players, Brazil hasn’t won a medal in any of the last three Olympics.
In the FIFA Women’s World Cup, Brazil made it to the final in 2007 — losing to Germany, 2-0 — but haven’t been in the semifinals since.
The Brazil vs. USA gold medal match features numerous out LGBTQ players. In addition to Marta for Brazil there are Tamires, Tarciane, Adriana, Lorena and Taina. Brazil players have long used one name to identify them.
The United States is likely to have just one out athlete on the pitch: Tierna Davidson. Goalkeeper Jane Campbell is a reserve. Over the last few years there has been a precipitous decline in out players on the USWNT.
For Marta to win her first gold medal in her final match at the Olympics would be a story-book ending to one of the greatest-ever careers of any athlete in her sport. That she and her teammates would be winning their country’s first gold would be a story right out of a Hollywood movie.
