Orlando Pride’s Marta says she wants to play for “at least two more years.”
Amid a currently undefeated season at first-place Orlando Pride and the high-profile retirements of Alex Morgan and Christine Sinclair, Brazilian superstar Marta said she plans to play professional football for at least two more years.
“I don’t know if I’ll be in Orlando. But my thought is: play at least two more years,” she shared The Athletics. Her current contract with the Pride is after the 2024 season.
Marta has scored seven goals and provided two assists in 19 games this season, and the Pride are seven points ahead of second-place Washington Spirit, who they face on Sunday. If they win, they will win the NWSL Shield, which is awarded to the team with the highest points total in the regular season.
In 2023, Marta scored four goals, all from penalties, and played a more central attacking midfield position. This season, head coach Seb Hines has moved Marta up the pitch to play alongside Barbra Banda.
‘To run after Barbra, you have to work hard. You have to be in good shape,” Marta joked to explain the energy she has shown on the field this year.
This has been a season of revitalization for Marta, who won a silver medal with Brazil at the Olympic Games in France before retiring from international football. “I will not leave football behind. I want to help this generation in some way,” she said after that match, which Brazil lost 1-0 to the United States.
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For the club, and with the Pride season going so well, Marta said she was happy with her decision to come to Orlando in 2017.
“I feel good that I decided to stay here for so long and have to go through all these situations year after year,” she said.
“I came to Orlando because I want to be close to my country, close to my friends and family and see them more often. I came here and met good people then. The community, it’s great. We have almost everyone from everywhere: Latino, Europe. So I feel so comfortable with this. And I started to visualize my life here in Orlando, not just for one or two years, but for a long time.”
Since 2017, the Pride have had six head coaches, including interims, and after Marta’s first year with the club, in which they finished third overall, they have never finished higher than seventh or qualified for the playoffs since. In 2024, the Pride became the first team to mathematically reach a playoff position, with Marta playing an average of 78 minutes per game.
“I always have in mind that if I put myself in this situation, I have to do the best I can,” she said. “I want to play because I still have something to offer the team. I still have the energy that the team needs for me and the quality that the football world demands… I feel good.”
After beating Bay FC 1-0 in September, Marta told the media after the match: “I want to do more. I want to break more records anyway, so no one can catch us.”
(Top photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck / Imagn Images)
