Marta Vieira da Silva was used to getting funny looks. In the small town of Dois Riachos, a three-day bus journey from Rio de JaneiroA seaside city in Brazil with a population of 6.7 million., she was the only girl who played football - and that was only when the boys allowed her to. Their games often took place in dried-up riverbeds; when the rains came, they moved to the beach.

Marta's father abandoned the family when she was a baby. Nor did she see much of her mother Mae, because she worked so hard to support Marta and her three siblings. Mae would leave at 5am to work as a farm labourer and only return late at night.

"We didn't have enough money even to buy a football," Marta remembers. "If my mum had done that we would have gone without food."¹

Luckily an older cousin recognised Marta's potential. When she was 14 he got a friend to arrange a trial for her with a women's team in Rio and helped pay for her bus fare. 

At the trial she was afraid to open her mouth in case people made fun of her accent. But with her first touch she scored a goal, hitting the ball so hard that it knocked the goalkeeper over backwards.

The club signed her, and she was soon promoted to the senior team. By 16 she was playing for Brazil, and at 17 was hailed as the star of the 2003 World Cup.

The following year she moved to Europe, where she helped the Swedish side Umea IK win the UEFA Women's Cup in her first season. "The cold was a challenge," she says. "I went from 35C every day in Brazil to a place where it reaches minus 22C in the winter. But my life has always been about breaking barriers. I saw everything as a challenge."

In 2006, Marta was named World Player of the Year - a title she would hold for five seasons in a row. It is one of many extraordinary career statistics. 

She is Brazil's all-time top goal scorer, with a tally of 118 from 183 games. She has scored the most goals of any player, male or female, in the World Cup (17), and was the first to score a goal in five consecutive tournaments.²

She has also won two Olympic silver medals - and now has one more chance to win a gold. Last week Brazil's manager named her in his women's squad for Paris, calling her "the greatest athlete of all time".³

Some believe her career would have been more glittering still if she had had the same support as her country's male stars. For many years it was actually illegal in Brazil for women to play football. 

At her peak, says veteran commentator Juca Kfouri, Marta was Brazil's most complete player - better even than RonaldoA retired Brazilian footballer nicknamed "O Fenomeno" (The Phenomenon). At 17 he was the youngest member of the squad which won the 1994 World Cup. and Ronaldhino. Matias Grez of CNN describes her as "technically close to perfection" with a mix of "instinctive ingenuity, balance, control and ruthlessness in front of goal". Such is her determination that she wears red lipstick, she says, to show her readiness to leave blood on the pitch.

She has also worked as a UN ambassador, promoting women's and girls' sport. She wants to pass on her "message of hope", she says, so that "they can be inspired by my story and follow their own path".

Does she have a lesson for us all?

Yes: To come from a family that could not afford a football and rise to the top of the sport is an extraordinary achievement. It shows what can be accomplished if you have the determination.

No: Determination can only take you so far. Marta would not have succeeded if she had not been born with a really exceptional talent. She also had the luck to meet someone who could arrange a trial.

Or... Marta shows how a single person can change perceptions. Her success has forced the Brazilian authorities to take women's football more seriously, and has inspired female players around the world.