Champagne ice coolers and guitar serenades – life as Marta’s room-mate

When I signed for Rosengard in Sweden in 2013, I couldn’t believe I was going into a dressing room with Marta.

I remember one of our first team meetings and everyone spoke Swedish – including Marta. I was thinking ‘not only is she a superstar on the pitch, she speaks Swedish as well as Portuguese, Spanish and English’. There was no end to that woman’s talents.

The Swedish girls would sometimes tease her about her grammar. But we loved that about her. She had the freedom and confidence to express herself. She drew people to her and they wanted to engage with her. We would say she was the teacher’s pet with our general manager because she could get away with anything.

She was my room-mate and our personalities were quite well-suited. It never really fazed me. I was just kind of like ‘oh, Marta’s my room-mate’.

There were similarities culturally and in our upbringing that connected us. There is a lot of Afro-Brazilian culture where she is from and I grew up in an African household. Our parents talk loud, there’s always music being played, food everywhere and family in and out of the door. We could relate to each other.

My fondest memories of Marta were always team social gatherings. I remember her rocking up to a post-season party at one of the girls’ flats with a champagne ice cooler. We were just like ‘only Marta could do that’.

We were in Spain playing in the Champions League once and she wanted to go shopping. She kept asking to buy me stuff and I was like ‘I’m fine!’ She was always trying to make others happy.

She brought so much energy and charisma. When we won, she would always come into the changing room and start shaking her hips, dancing.

The thing that I always found funny was that she adored dogs and had a chihuahua in Sweden that she treated like a baby. I’m sure she had dog spa days in her flat. She would dance with the dog and it makes me laugh thinking about the juxtaposition of this fearless, mentality monster on the pitch, who is just a big softy off it.

That’s the beauty of her. I got to know her quite well as my room-mate. We would travel a lot and she would watch Brazilian soaps. I would ask her what was happening and she would be talking about this whole love story going on. She would get so into the emotion of it all!

She was totally in her comfort zone. She always travelled with a guitar too and she would sing songs in Portuguese. I would sit there as she serenaded me. It was class.