{"id":49950,"date":"2025-11-17T16:03:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/49950\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T16:03:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:03:17","slug":"marta-wont-exit-quietly-from-nwsl-playoffs-after-orlando-pride-loss-it-should-not-end-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/49950\/","title":{"rendered":"Marta won\u2019t exit quietly from NWSL playoffs after Orlando Pride loss: \u2018It should not end like this\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marta isn\u2019t a sore loser, but she\u2019s 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<\/a> to Gotham FC in the sixth minute of stoppage time in the NWSL semifinals. She\u2019s too competitive, too invested, too proud to go out without a bit of fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have lost the game, but not this way,\u201d she told reporters after the match. The Pride\u2019s captain, who has been named FIFA World Player of the Year six times, wasn\u2019t buying the referee\u2019s call that handed Gotham a free kick in the 96th minute at Inter&Co Stadium on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a hard game, and it was open for both sides. But honestly, it shouldn\u2019t end like that,\u201d Marta said. \u201cI need to see what happened again, but from the field, I did not see that there was a fault. I\u2019m sorry, but I feel that the referee was looking to find something like that, to mess up. There was no fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the outcry, the 39-year-old was not afraid to accept the shortcomings of her team, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a good team. But we needed to be just a little bit more aggressive overall,\u201d she explained. \u201cWe needed to put the ball in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s entire attacking structure. Still, they made their way into the postseason, grinding out results in key matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe play in the best league, and we need to deal with ups and downs in this league,\u201d Marta said. \u201cI think we were so resilient in this season. Many people believed that we couldn\u2019t go so far, especially after we lost Barbra.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019s semifinal against the No. 8 seed, Gotham.<\/p>\n

Marta was clearly upset at Sunday\u2019s loss, but she gave credit where credit was due, emphasizing Gotham\u2019s overall performance this season, especially its quarterfinal performance against the NWSL Shield winner Kansas City Current. \u201cEven the best team this year, they lost against Gotham,\u201d she said, congratulating her opponents and wishing them the best in the final next weekend.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

If anything, last season has only reinforced how badly she wants to keep winning.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

After more than two decades as a pro, she still shows up with the same excitement, nervousness and hunger to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday 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,\u201d she said. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no doubt she still cares. Days before the semifinal, former Gotham midfielder McCall Zerboni said on CBS Sports\u2019 \u201cAttacking Third\u201d that Orlando was the side coming to the semifinals with \u201carguably one star,\u201d a comment widely interpreted as a dig at the Pride\u2019s depth and at Marta herself.<\/p>\n

Marta fired back on X<\/a> \u2014 her first post in seven months \u2014 pointedly suggesting that \u201caverage athletes\u201d don\u2019t always transition well to commentary, punctuating the post with a giant sad emoji and the hashtag \u201c#MZ,\u201d unmistakably aimed at Zerboni.<\/p>\n

And you couldn\u2019t miss how much Sunday\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis team isn\u2019t made of 11 players; it\u2019s made of 26,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we proved that this season. Everyone here matters. We work for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also couldn\u2019t resist getting in one last word for Zerboni before closing the book on Orlando\u2019s season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have one star here,\u201d she said, pointing at her jersey, \u201cand it is made by everybody. I\u2019d rather have one star built by the whole group, all focused on one objective, one goal, than a bunch of people who think they\u2019re stars. What else can I say? I\u2019m proud \u2014 so proud \u2014 because we built this together. Yeah, we have one star. But it was made by everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marta isn\u2019t a sore loser, but she\u2019s also not the type to wrap up an absolute roller coaster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[19307,8216,139,141,140,3968,8218],"class_list":{"0":"post-49950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-brazil","9":"tag-nwsl","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-headlines","12":"tag-orlando-news","13":"tag-orlando-pride","14":"tag-womens-soccer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}