“Since Orlando took the initiative to build a women’s soccer team, it has shown that it has the same intent for them that it has for the men’s team.”
That was what Marta, the five time FIFA Women’s Player of the Year, said at last Friday’s press conference when asked why she chose to come to the City Beautiful.
Several Pride players have talked during the offseason and the preseason about the team’s commitment to treating their men’s and women’s teams as equal. They use the same training facility, they play on the same pitch. The move to get Marta showed a lot of ambition, but it also showed commitment from the organization that they wanted the best in Orlando.
“I think Marta being here shows commitment from ourselves to women’s soccer in the region,” Alex Leitao, Orlando City CEO, said. “We have very ambitious goals that I think she will help us to achieve.”
Orlando City Soccer Club is a part of a larger movement towards growth in women’s sports across the United States. The NWSL recently signed a television contract with Lifetime, expanding access to the sport while also providing some stability to the league entering its fifth year. In addition, the U.S women’s soccer team recently negotiated a new Collective Bargaining Agreement that moved them closer to equality with their male counterparts.
“I left Brazil very early and I started playing against some of the greatest athletes in the world, and since then women’s soccer in the United States was referenced as the best. And this movement that is happening here in the U.S is also a reference,” Marta said. “And what athlete wouldn’t want to be part of that and play their main sport, their preferred sport, in such a country.”
