Marta, the best soccer player in the world, makes her courtship with a teammate official

Marta Vieira with Toni Pressley, in a photograph published on her Instagram profile.

The Brazilian Marta, chosen six times by FIFA as the best footballer in the world, was for most of her sports career very discreet about her personal life, but that began to change last year.

And this first Monday of 2021, she has come out on the balcony to shout loudly to her 2.3 million followers and the rest of the planet that she is officially engaged to the American player Toni Deion Pressley.

They met at Orlando Pride, the Miami (USA) team where they play.

"This is a new chapter in the history we are writing together," announced the mythical forward on her Instagram account under some photos in which the couple poses sober, in black, to give prominence to their rings and intense red lips of the

.

Marta Vieira da Silva, 34, shares the throne of Brazilian soccer with Pelé.

He is

she is

, the top scorer of the Brazilian team and the World Cups.

In 2019 he played his fifth World Cup in France.

Always grim, Marta's announcement does not specify if it is the prelude to a wedding as some interpret it.

His girlfriend - American, 30 years old and who plays defense - has responded immediately from his account on the same network with a "yes" and a smile surrounded by hearts.

The discreet relationship, never made official until now, gained visibility a year and a half ago, when Pressley revealed that he had cancer.

After undergoing treatment, he has returned to the field.

Unlike what is still happening in men's soccer, homosexuality has long been no taboo in women's soccer even among its biggest stars.

If they do eventually marry, they will be the second marriage in their team's ranks, according to the

newspaper

.

Marta and her girlfriend exchanged affectionate public messages on February 17, which, coincidentally, is their birthday.

And in Brazil it is common for Cristiane, another of the canarinha stars, to pose with her partner, a lawyer.

Marta also has one of those Dickensian biographies still common in soccer country.

He was born in a tiny town in the poorest and most abandoned Brazil, he had to fight hard against imposing himself against prejudice.

First to play soccer and then to earn a living kicking the ball.

Very soon he went abroad to bring out the best of his innate talent.

Before coming to Orlando Pride, he played for various teams in Sweden, the United States and Brazil.

The player also stands out in the Brazilian soccer Olympus for her aversion to the scandal, unlike Neymar, news these days for the party he organized for New Year's Eve, or Ronaldinho, who has spent a good part of the last year imprisoned in Paraguay for entering with false documentation .

As the end of her sports career approaches, the soccer player Marta multiplies her activity in social initiatives: she is a UN goodwill ambassador for women and girls in sport, she makes an explicit speech in favor of gender equality and against sexist violence and stars in advertisements.

And recently he has seen changes that do nothing would be unthinkable in his profession.

Brazil decided last September that it will pay the same to the women and men of the canarinha.