Marta’s 17 – Lionel Messi tied Miroslav Klose’s men’s World Cup scoring record on June 16, but the all-time mark still belongs to Brazil’s Marta, who has 17 World Cup goals. Marta’s achievement—briefly threatened by years of unequal attention to women’s football—was celebr
On June 16, Lionel Messi hit another milestone at the World Cup—tying Germany’s Miroslav Klose’s men’s record with 16 goals. The celebration was loud, but it didn’t end the larger debate about who gets counted, and who gets celebrated when the spotlight swings.
Because even with Messi now level with Klose. the all-time World Cup scoring record belongs to a woman: Marta. the Brazilian forward often described as the “female Pelé.” Marta has scored 17 goals at the World Cup. an achievement that has stood as the benchmark even as the sport’s biggest names chase each other for history’s top spot.
Marta made the remarks she’s become known for when she passed Klose seven years ago during the World Cup in France. “I am very honored. happy to write the history in a sport that for some people is still seen as a men’s sport. ” she said. “We are breaking records, showing how much women’s football has been developing. It’s a story not only for Marta, but also for all women out there.”.
Her message wasn’t just about one goal tally. It was also about the long shadow cast by how soccer is marketed and valued—especially when it comes to women.
Some of the energy around the tournament is personal and immediate. Three Argentina superfans reportedly cycled 11. 000 miles across the Americas before a surprise gift helped them attend their team’s World Cup opener. Their journey is the kind of dedication the men’s game has long celebrated. But the focus of Marta’s remarks—and the outrage that followed her record being referenced without enough respect—points to a different kind of fatigue: the sense that women’s football has repeatedly been asked to prove it deserves the same space.
That tension is also wrapped up in how records are framed. While Messi is “all but certain” to get the overall World Cup scoring record “at some point in the next month. ” Marta remains the record holder for now. And she isn’t the only player whose historical position gets lost when the conversation defaults to the men’s game. Christine Sinclair—rather than Cristiano Ronaldo—holds the record for the most international goals.
Marta has also been explicit about the uneven treatment she believes begins far upstream, with FIFA. “Misogyny starts with FIFA. ” she said in the discussion included here. arguing that the women’s tournament is too often treated as a lesser version of the men’s. She described the tournament everyone is watching right now as “the World Cup. ” while the one scheduled next year in her home country is labeled as “the Women’s World Cup.”.
In her view, the modifier signals something beyond scheduling. It suggests the women’s tournament is not considered the real thing—“less impressive,” “less worthy,” “less equal,” and “less deserving of respect.” She called that framing “sexist nonsense.”
The argument extends to how long women were shut out of the sport itself. Women were banned from even playing soccer in England and Brazil for much of the 20th century—legally prohibited from playing. Marta ties today’s progress to investment and women’s demands for a better future. saying that as countries have invested. and as women have demanded better. the level of the women’s game has risen.
There are also concrete reminders of what that lag looked like in the United States. When the U.S. women’s team went to its first World Cup, they wore recycled uniforms from the men’s team. At the same time, the article notes that U.S. Soccer is one of the rare federations that pays its men’s and women’s national teams equally. and that it has been doing so since 2022.
Marta’s position is not a dismissal of men’s greatness. The comparison is drawn carefully: she says the games are different. but that does not mean women are “less.” She urges viewers to watch Marta or Trinity Rodman and see that their football is as sublime as the sport’s biggest male stars. She also pushes back hard on the impulse to turn these debates into a question of whether a men’s team could beat a women’s team. calling that “Neanderthal thinking.”.
For her. the focus should stay where it has to for records to mean anything: “Goals are goals. ” she said in spirit through the reasoning in the article. and scoring 17 at the World Cup should be recognized as the kind of achievement that earns respect—without being glossed over or. in her view. erased.
The stakes behind the debate are bigger than one tournament or one headline. When Messi tied Klose on Tuesday, June 16, it was a moment for the men’s record book. But Marta’s enduring 17-goal mark keeps pulling the conversation back to a more uncomfortable question: why women’s accomplishments still have to be defended like they’re optional.
Marta’s own words—honored to write history in a sport still seen by some as a men’s game—sit at the center of that fight. Her record remains intact today. The question now is whether the recognition that comes with it will finally match what the sport’s biggest audiences already understand about greatness: it doesn’t change just because the player is a woman.
Marta Lionel Messi Miroslav Klose World Cup scoring record women’s football FIFA Christine Sinclair Cristiano Ronaldo Trinity Rodman U.S. women’s national team Nancy Armour