#Marta soccer sexy professional#

“Maybe that’s what’s missing for people who can do something for Brazilian female football, to actually wake up and change the reality of female football because we have three medals. “But when that moment has passed and Brazil hasn’t played well or won, then you lose that attention. “When you have competitions like the Olympics or the World Cup, then it captures people’s attention and that of the media,” said Marta.

#Marta soccer sexy professional#

and Europe, progress has been far more difficult to achieve in Brazil.Įven the achievements of the national team, which has won two silver medals and finished as runner-up at the last World Cup, has not been enough to get the professional game off the ground. That’s a huge increase from 1971, when three international teams played just two matches – by 2011 there were 129 teams playing 514 games.īut while the women’s game has grown in the U.S. Read: London 2012 changed everything and nothingĪccording to the latest figures published by FIFA, the world’s governing body, 29 million women and girls play football worldwide. While women’s football has struggled to gain its share of the limelight in Brazil, the sport is booming across the globe. There’s still a percentage that thinks like in the old days.”įootball in Brazil is seen as a masculine sport even with a lot of people accepting the female sport. “Football in Brazil is seen as a masculine sport, even with a lot of people accepting the female sport. Women have shown they have capabilities in every sense better than men a lot of time, but it’s that whole macho thing. “Men think that women are a bit fragile to perform some types of activities or don’t have the ability and aren’t strong enough. “There’s still prejudice and that resistance regarding women not only on female football but in various activities. “I think it has changed a bit but that mentality still exists,” she said. On the club front, the UEFA European Women’s Champions League has been gaining in popularity since its inception in 2001.Īnd yet still Marta believes that attitudes towards women within football have remained stuck in the past. Three years later, over 90,000 people were packed into the Pasadena Rose Bowl, California, for the 1999 World Cup as the U.S. Like Marta, women’s football has come a long way too since it held its debut at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where nearly 80,000 watched the U.S.

Not bad for a girl who grew up in Dois Riachos, playing football on the streets against boys twice her size and without any formative coaching until the age of 14.įast forward to 2013, and the 27-year-old is one of the most recognizable faces in the sport, starring for Swedish side Tyresö FF in Stockholm.