Marta's family: A port in a storm

Marta lives in Sweden but her mind is constantly wandering back to Brazil… or more precisely to Dois Riachos. It isn’t hard to understand why. Her entire family - and there are quite a few of them - still live in Dois Riachos, a municipality 200 km from Maceio, the capital of the state of Alagoas. Marta was born and grew up there, surrounded by relatives, but when she went to live in Sweden she was very much alone.

Only one member of her family has ever been to Umeå, where Marta’s team are based, and even she made it clear there was no way she’d be able to spend much time there. Her mother, Dona Tereza, went to visit, but couldn’t bring herself to stay longer than 40 days. Marta laughingly recalls how her mother pined for the comforts of home: “She said: ‘My child, I want to go home because it’s too cold here and you don’t get Domingão do Faustão (a popular variety show) on the TV.’”

The distance between Brazil and Sweden is a large one. But Marta’s love for her mother is far greater. The young player always makes a point of dedicating her triumphs to her and, being highly emotional, breaks into tears just talking about Dona Tereza and everything she has done for her. The Brazilian star says that the only reason she doesn’t miss her mother even more is because the Swedes have been so welcoming and have helped her to adapt.

While her mother plays a special part in Marta’s life, there are two other female members of the family that miss her as much as her mum does, and who also ride the emotional rollercoaster whenever they see her in action on the TV. One of them is her 97-year old grandmother Elvira and the other is her aunt Nilda, better known as Auntie Nena. The young Marta used to spend more time in Nena’s house than in her own. And today her aunt and her granny are well known to be her biggest fans.

Dona Elvira has said that, at first, she thought it strange that her granddaughter played with the boys. But in the end she decided that there was nothing she could do about it, and left her to get on with it. Even then, she used to go and look for her in bars after games because she worried about what people would say about her. Aunt Nena thinks that, given everything that she can do with a ball, her niece should have been born a boy. Nevertheless, she thanks God that she is a woman who, she says, has enchanted the nation and the world.

Marta was also taken to task by her oldest brother José, who today works as a bricklayer. He wasn’t against his sister playing football, but he did have a certain paternal concern. As their parents had split up when Marta was just one year old, José was the man of the household and was of the belief that “it wasn’t a good idea for a woman to be playing with men.” On numerous occasions he turned up and tried to stop her, but she just ran off.

Coincidence or not, the running theme would recur years later, when Marta inherited what was intended as an affectionate nickname. The name surprised her, and she took it in good humour, but was never entirely happy about it; so much so, in fact, that her team-mates avoided using the name in front of other people. The name in question was ‘Zeferina’ or ‘Zefe’ for short. It came about at the team’s concentração. The whole team was watching a TV report about a Brazilian marathon runner called Maria Zeferina Baldaia, who had won the famous São Silvestre road race in 2001 and become only the third Brazilian to do so. Several of the players thought Baldaia’s history was similar to Marta’s.

The runner had worked as a cane cutter in the sugar cane fields of the Sertãozinho, not far from where Marta was born, and grew up selling ice lollies on the streets and beans at the local market. They learned similar lessons in life, and both had to overcome hardship on their way to becoming role models for other Brazilians.