Brazil: Marta Vieira da Silva, Football Superstar · Global Voices
David Sasaki

The Global Game has pieced together an incredible and inspirational biography of the 5'3″ Brazilian 20-year-old prodigy Marta Vieira da Silva. Here's just a glimpse: “Marta’s background [is complex]: the perennially water-challenged “backlands” area, more than 1,000 miles northeast of the country’s political and tourist centers, that provides her cultural backing and character; the ever cycling narrative of displacement and reunion; and the negotiations with identity required by excelling as a woman at a male-dominated sport, accentuated by knowing that soccer for women in Brazil was banned until 1979—seven years before Marta’s birth.”