![]() “I didn’t say that Neymar was guilty for the end of women's football,” he said. ![]() Including cutting the entire women’s team in 2011.Īt a press conference, when a reporter asked Neymar if he felt bad that his high salary resulted in the dissolution of the women’s team, Coach Álvaro grabbed the mic before Neymar could respond. And Santos management did whatever it had to in order to pay Neymar a salary that could compete with the European sides. On the men’s side, when Neymar was courted by European clubs in 2010, it was Pele who urged Neymar to stay. Santos Futebol Feminino was the best women’s team in Brazil, and with Erika, Cristiane, and Marta in their lineup, they were one of the best women’s teams in the world. While it’s well-known that Pele and Neymar played for Santos FC, the most storied club in Brazil, it’s less well-known that Marta did as well, in 2009 and then again in 2011. Marta and Neymar are both jaunty tricksters who invent and surprise, both wearers of the iconic number ten jerseys, both Pele’s successors. I am so happy to have her here, to at least have the chance to play with her.” When the reporter said, “Here we are with two craque players” ( craque being the ultimate compliment in Portuguese), Marta responded, shyly, “He’s more craque.” After the game, the pair high-fived, lacing their hands together and looking equally impressed by the other. In December 2011, Marta and Neymar played together in a charity match. ![]() ![]() Can she make people care? Can the admiration of her male counterpart, Neymar, force soccer fans and sponsors alike to recognize the ginga Marta embodies? As she heads to the Women’s World Cup in Canada this month, she carries the complicated hopes of a nation that’s never found much reason to care about women’s soccer, even while it recognizes her exceptional skill on the field. Of the eight professional teams she’s played for in the past, seven have folded, unable to stay financially afloat. While Neymar has vaulted to colossal success around the world, with Barcelona paying a transfer fee of more than 57 million Euros to acquire him two years ago, Marta has struggled for the past eight years to find a league that could support her. Pele himself referred to her as “Pele with a skirt.” Brazilians couldn’t resist what Marta could do on the field. The newspaper headlines read “MARTA MARTA MARTA.” Pele himself referred to Marta as “Pele with a skirt.” She was named the FIFA World Player of the Year an unheard of five years in a row between 20. But ginga, it turns out, overpowers prejudice: Brazilians couldn’t resist what Marta could do on the field. (The law stated that “women will not be allowed to practice sports which are considered incompatible to their feminine nature.”) The conception that women playing soccer is “unnatural” hasn’t entirely faded. While women’s soccer had been popular in the early 1900s, with up to 40 women’s teams in Rio de Janeiro alone, it was banned in 1941, an embargo that wasn’t lifted until 1979. In the 2007 World Cup semi-final against the United States, a then-21-year-old named Marta backheel-juggled the ball around one side of the defender, and pirouetted around the other before scoring, marking one of the first moments Brazil became aware of another magician in its midst.īefore Marta, futebol feminino was nearly unheard of. When the striker’s injured vertebra prevented him from playing in the semi-final, the country mourned the loss of its magician.īut Neymar isn’t the country’s only hope. The 7:1 loss against the German team felt like a reprimand from the angered pantheon-a sign Brazil should get back to the magic and beauty it’s known for.Īt that tournament, Neymar was the totem representing the ginga of the past his pedestrian teammates throwing his extraordinary ability into sharper focus. After more than a decade without a World Cup victory, Brazil forsook ginga in favor of a more aggressive determination to win at all costs, leading the World Cup in fouls committed. Even the spectacular failure of the Brazilian team at home felt otherworldly, with the squad too thoroughly ravaged for it not to have been fated. There’s even a word for the specific fusion of sorcery and skill embodied by so many of the nation’s players: ginga, the Portuguese term for a certain kind of sublime deftness on the pitch, something incorporating both the sway of hips and unfettered imagination.ĭuring the 2014 World Cup, the tournament felt similarly enchanted, with the endless goals in group play, the drastic reversals of fortune, and the impossible injury-time saviors. When it comes to soccer, Brazil is known worldwide as the land of the magicians.
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