Marta isn’t a sore loser, but she’s also not the type to wrap up an absolute roller coaster of a season that pushed the Orlando Pride all the way to a semifinal by bowing out quietly after a heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Gotham FC in the sixth minute of stoppage time in the NWSL semifinals. She’s too competitive, too invested, too proud to go out without a bit of fire.
“We should have lost the game, but not this way,” she told reporters after the match. The Pride’s captain, who has been named FIFA World Player of the Year six times, wasn’t buying the referee’s call that handed Gotham a free kick in the 96th minute at Inter&Co Stadium on Sunday.
“This was a hard game, and it was open for both sides. But honestly, it shouldn’t end like that,” Marta said. “I need to see what happened again, but from the field, I did not see that there was a fault. I’m sorry, but I feel that the referee was looking to find something like that, to mess up. There was no fault.”
Despite the outcry, the 39-year-old was not afraid to accept the shortcomings of her team, either.
“They have a good team. But we needed to be just a little bit more aggressive overall,” she explained. “We needed to put the ball in.”
The defending champion Pride limped into the playoffs as the No. 4 seed after a chaotic regular season that never quite settled. Losing their star forward, Barbra Banda, to a season-ending injury midway through the campaign shook the Pride’s entire attacking structure. Still, they made their way into the postseason, grinding out results in key matches.
“We play in the best league, and we need to deal with ups and downs in this league,” Marta said. “I think we were so resilient in this season. Many people believed that we couldn’t go so far, especially after we lost Barbra.”
Last weekend, they took care of the Seattle Reign in the quarterfinals with a put-together performance: an early strike from Haley McCutcheon set the tone, and Brazilian midfielder Luana buried a penalty, her first goal after a year spent fighting back from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, to seal the win. It was the kind of moment that made Orlando believe a return to the final was still on the table heading into Sunday’s semifinal against the No. 8 seed, Gotham.
Marta was clearly upset at Sunday’s loss, but she gave credit where credit was due, emphasizing Gotham’s overall performance this season, especially its quarterfinal performance against the NWSL Shield winner Kansas City Current. “Even the best team this year, they lost against Gotham,” she said, congratulating her opponents and wishing them the best in the final next weekend.
Marta stepped away from international soccer in 2024, after winning a third Olympic silver for Brazil in Paris, but has been open about her desire to keep playing professionally. After Paris, she captained Orlando to the 2024 Shield and the 2024 NWSL championship and signed a new contract with the club through the 2026 season in January.
If anything, last season has only reinforced how badly she wants to keep winning.
After more than two decades as a pro, she still shows up with the same excitement, nervousness and hunger to win.
“Today was one of those days where I was hungry, I wanted to eat, but I could not, because I felt the game in my stomach before it even started,” she said. “I knew I needed to do my best, find a way to make sure I motivated my players. And honestly? I take it as a good sign. It means I still care this much.”
There is no doubt she still cares. Days before the semifinal, former Gotham midfielder McCall Zerboni said on CBS Sports’ “Attacking Third” that Orlando was the side coming to the semifinals with “arguably one star,” a comment widely interpreted as a dig at the Pride’s depth and at Marta herself.
Marta fired back on X — her first post in seven months — pointedly suggesting that “average athletes” don’t always transition well to commentary, punctuating the post with a giant sad emoji and the hashtag “#MZ,” unmistakably aimed at Zerboni.
And you couldn’t miss how much Sunday’s loss mattered to her, as she broke down in tears when asked what she was planning to say to the squad after a gutting loss. Her answer was raw, unfiltered and the clearest reminder of how deeply she cares for her teammates.
“This team isn’t made of 11 players; it’s made of 26,” she said. “And we proved that this season. Everyone here matters. We work for each other.”
She also couldn’t resist getting in one last word for Zerboni before closing the book on Orlando’s season.
“We have one star here,” she said, pointing at her jersey, “and it is made by everybody. I’d rather have one star built by the whole group, all focused on one objective, one goal, than a bunch of people who think they’re stars. What else can I say? I’m proud — so proud — because we built this together. Yeah, we have one star. But it was made by everybody.”