Legends Marta, Sinclair exchange special shirts in Halifax

Story by Richard Scott

Football heroes Marta and Christine Sinclair, facing each other for the last time on the international stage on Tuesday night in Halifax, exchanged special shirts before the Canada-Brazil match at Wanderers Ground. Marta presented Sinclair with a Brazil “12 Sinclair” shirt while Sinclair presented Marta with a Canada “10 Marta” shirt before the sold-out 2023 Women’s International Friendly, the first ever in the province of Nova Scotia.

Sinclair and Marta are former teammates at the club level and long-time opponents on the international stage. They faced each other for the first time back in 2002 at the inaugural FIFA U-19 Women’s World Championship in Edmonton. Five years later, they met for the first time with their national teams in an “A” match at the 2007 Pan American Games.

Sinclair is playing in her penultimate series with Canada, with just a pair of home matches left in her remarkable international career scheduled for early December in British Columbia against Australia. Tickets to the Friday 1 December match on Vancouver Island have already sold out while tickets to the Tuesday 5 December match at BC Place in Vancouver are available now via CanadaSoccer.com.

Sinclair and Marta won back-to-back WPS Championships together as teammates, first in 2010 with FC Gold Pride and then again in 2011 with the Western New York Flash. Since 2017, they have played against each other in the National Women’s Soccer League with Sinclair at Portland Thorns FC and Marta at the Orlando Pride.

From the 2007 Pan American Games through to this 2023 Women’s International Series, Sinclair and Marta have faced each other 16 times at the international “A” level, including meetings at the Olympic Games in 2016 and 2021.

The two football heroes are the respective GOAT’s for their football nations, with Marta a record six-time FIFA World Player of the Year and Sinclair the world’s all-time international goalscoring record holder. They were also the first two players to score goals in five editions of the FIFA World Cup, both from 2003 to 2019. Marta is a two-time Olympic medal winner (Silver in 2004 and 2008) while Sinclair is a three-time Olympic medal winner (Bronze in 2012 and 2016, Gold in 2021).