Her 2011
The winner of the last five FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year awards, Marta experienced both footballing highs and lows in 2011. At club level she lifted the Women’s Professional Soccer Championship with Western New York Flash, the upstate New York club claiming both the regular-season and play-off titles.
Just for good measure, the Brazilian star also ended the season as the leading scorer for the third time running. The low point of the year came at Germany 2011. Despite serving up two assists and hitting four goals to join Germany’s Birgit Prinz as the joint highest scorer in the history of the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ with 14, the magical Marta was unable to prevent Brazil from going down to a quarter-final defeat to USA.
Her career
Arguably the globe’s most prolific producers of footballing talent and five-time winners of the FIFA World Cup™, Brazil has waited a long time for its female players to begin emulating their male counterparts. Though that struggle is by no means over, the remarkable rise of Marta Vieira da Silva from a tough childhood in Dois Riachos, Alagoas state has given the country a worthy footballing queen to join O Rei (the King) Pele.
Marta took her first steps on the professional ladder at the age of just 14, when she left her native city to try her luck with Rio de Janeiro side Vasco da Gama. Her spell at A Gigante da Colina was followed with a move to Sao Martins until in 2004, at 18 years of age, she packed her bags once more and headed for Swedish outfit Umea IK. This was another landmark event in a year which also featured the adidas Golden Ball award at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Thailand and helping Brazil to silver at the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament in Athens.
Individual and team honours have been coming ever since for the Brazilian No10, whose performances have helped turn A Seleção into serious contenders at every major tournament. Winner of a record four FIFA Women’s World Player awards from 2006 to 2009, Marta will be determined to hold onto her crown after another sparkling year for club and country.
