KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Last week, Marta was mad.

Usually, when she’s on the field with her nose toward goal, the three-time Olympic silver medalist visualizes repeating what she’s done many times over her lengthy career. She allows the joy to flow through her, down to her left foot and into the ball.

But she got a little heated with the opposition during last weekend’s NWSL semifinal between her Orlando Pride and the Kansas City Current.

“I tried to be nice most of the time during the game,” Marta said Thursday, to a rapt audience of reporters around her table at the NWSL championship media day.

There was a player on the Current who she exchanged words nicely with, according to the Brazilian. But the player, Marta declined to name names, was being “a little bit diva”.

“And I said, ‘Wow, all right. You made me mad. I’m going to go one-on-one against you’,” Marta said.

Marta picked up the ball in the center circle after forward Barbra Banda poked it away from Current defender Kayla Sharples. Marta faked out both Sharples and center back Alana Cook as they tried to challenge her, juked past goalkeeper Almuth Schult and got the shot off before outside back Hailie Mace could do anything, scoring the Pride’s crucial third goal in the 82nd minute of an eventual 3-2 win.

It was another reminder, as if it was needed, that Marta is truly one of the greatest to ever play.

She celebrated with mixed emotion, anger and joy battling for dominance. But for Marta, it felt the same as so many other goal celebrations before. At media day, she nearly reached for her phone to pull up a photo of her celebrating a goal with Brazil to compare with what proved to be the game-winning goal that sent her to her first NWSL final.

“Honestly, what I see is maybe we should try and make her mad. She turns on a whole other level,” Pride teammate Morgan Gautrat said with a laugh.

Other Pride players talked about watching the goal on repeat, from different angles, but no one expressed surprise. They see it regularly.

“Nothing’s changed,” Marta said. “I have passion for this game, and that’s why I still play.”

Much like the potential of finally earning an Olympic gold medal back in the summer with Brazil at age 38, Marta doesn’t need an NWSL championship trophy to cement her legacy as a force in American women’s professional soccer. She has already won a title and a shield here in 2010 with FC Gold Pride during the previous professional league era of the WPS. And the Pride already captured a trophy this year, winning the NWSL Shield for most regular season points.

She reiterated Thursday that she’s planning to play for another two years, though she’s a free agent heading into the NWSL offseason. But when she does finally hang up her boots, Marta has one of the best chances of an international player making it into the National Soccer Hall of Fame based on a club career.

This season is special, though. Marta said it’s the best she’s ever had at the club level, even compared to her days in Sweden with one of the strongest sides in Europe at that time, Umeå IK.

“If I achieve this big goal with this amazing team, good,” Marta said. “If not, this season was so special from the beginning to now, like not even close to the best dream I can imagine.”

When asked during the last press conference before the final where this NWSL championship ranks amid her illustrious career, Marta emphatically held up a finger: number one.

“I think because of the way we did during the season from the beginning to now, it is something very special that I have never had before in any other club that I’ve played for,” she said. “It’s hard to win the games in the first place (in NWSL), like almost all the games.”

Marta joined the Pride in 2017, a year after their inaugural season as an expansion team. The team had some big-name talent, from Alex Morgan to Ali Krieger. They had good results in Marta’s debut year and made the playoffs. However, the Pride never finished higher than seventh for the following five seasons (not including 2020, when no regular season was played due to the pandemic). In 2023, they achieved seventh place again, missing the playoffs by a two-goal difference in the standings on the last day.

“(Marta) remembers the hard times. She remembers when we were the laughingstock of the league,” head coach Seb Hines said Friday. “Now, she’s enjoying it. Now, everything’s coming together. We’ve got a great culture. We’ve got great players here. We’ve got structure within the top to the bottom now, and so she probably just reminds herself of, like, what it was like before, and just enjoying every single moment of what it’s like now.”

As much as the external focus is on Marta this week, especially after that semifinal goal, she’s not feeling that external pressure at all. She’s not thrown off by the high demand for her from the media, or sitting down for a couple of video features during a championship week. She’s never experienced the madness of an NWSL championship as a finalist, but she’s been to plenty of World Cups and Olympics. She’s also not focused on herself as an individual.

“It’s not this player, (or) this player, it’s the team,” she said. “We do it together. This is exactly how it’s supposed to be. It’s not about the one or two players, it’s about the project. It’s about the work that everybody put in. If the trophy comes to us, amazing. If not, we’re going to keep working hard.”

Marta celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal against the Current. (Mike Watters / Imagn Images)

From the outside, it is easy to assume that the team would love to win a championship title for Marta. And while that’s not inaccurate, said Pride general manager Haley Carter, it’s also not the only internal narrative driving them. From her front-row seat, Carter said Marta embodies the team culture every day and that this is a group of players that truly loves each other.

“This is actually what makes her great,” Carter said on media day. “This is what gives her legendary status: everything is about the team. It’s not about, ‘I’ve never won a NWSL title. I’ve never won the league’. It’s not about that. It’s about getting the team in the space to be successful. That’s her priority.”

Marta has been crucial on the field for the Pride as well. So much of her success this year, including her nine goals and an assist during the regular season, as well as her two playoff goals so far, comes not just from her return to form, but a slightly more advanced position on the field. She’s been closer to goal, and adding Banda to the mix only helped.

When you look at her touches over the past three seasons, this year the Pride are essentially getting 12 percent more of Marta in the final third.

It has worked, to say the least.

There are still the intangibles, too. And for a player with Marta’s stature and legacy, those are impossible to overlook.

“She’s given so much to this club. She’s given absolutely everything. She hasn’t been at another team in this league, and so it’s part of her. She knows what it means to play for this team. She knows what it means to play for this badge,” Hines said Friday at his pregame press conference. “Take away all the individuality of the dribbling and shooting and stuff, her fundamentals of football when you see someone with stature doing it, there’s no questions for anyone else to do it, young, old, whatever.”

Tonight against the Washington Spirit at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, Orlando’s captain will lead her team one final time in 2024. She’ll almost certainly be facing a hostile crowd, including locals who haven’t forgotten last week’s goal or Marta shushing them in the Pride’s 2-1 win over the Current there before the Olympic break.

But there will be at least one person in the stands who has never seen her play before in America: her mother.

Marta told The Athletic Thursday that she had finally managed to help arrange a visa for her mom to attend a match in the United States and that a family member had managed to take two weeks off to travel with her and help her get around. For Marta, it was the perfect time for her mother to finally see her play a professional game in the States. Sure, they had to run around Thursday morning buying her mom more cold-weather gear so she was prepared for the chill of Kansas City in November, but it was all worth it.

“She told me this year, ‘If I don’t come to America, and then I pass away, I’m gonna pass away so sad’.” Marta couldn’t help mimicking her own incredulous face at the heightened levels of maternal guilt. “And I said, ‘Mom! Why do you have to be like that?’.”

All this week, Marta’s been nothing but smiles and jokes, soaking in a game that is the culmination of her eight years in Orlando. But despite the clear joy emanating from the Brazilian, maybe tonight she’ll get a little mad too, and provide one more moment of magic this season.

Jeff Rueter contributed to this story.

(Top photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck / Imagn Images)

Former NFL star Jason Kelce got a first-hand look at the Appalachian State Mountaineers football team on Saturday.

Kelce made the trip to Boone, North Carolina for the Mountaineers’ matchup with James Madison. App State was ultimately able to pull off the 34-20 victory. Now, if the Mountaineers are able to pick up their sixth win of the season next week, App State would become bowl eligible.

But before Saturday’s Appalachian State-James Madison game, Kelce made his way to the tailgate area. At one point during his stop, Kelce was seen chugging beers. The retired Philadelphia Eagles center and seven-time Pro Bowler even took a few minutes to participate in karaoke. 

Kelce also posed for pictures with some fans before he entered Kidd Brewer Stadium.

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Kelce, who signed with ESPN in May and makes routine appearances on “Monday Night Countdown,” also addressed the crowd and made a brief appearance on the ESPN+ broadcast.

In April, Jason and his brother Travis received their college diplomas from the University of Cinncinati. Travis celebrated the moment in true Kelce style.

After shaking hands with the university’s president, Dr. Neville Pinto, onstage, Travis chugged a can of beer as the Beastie Boys’ hit song “Fight for Your Right” played in the arena. Travis would often recite the lyrics to the song following the Kansas City Chiefs’ games and during the team’s Super Bowl celebrations.

While Travis and Jason previously graduated from Cincinnati, they both missed out on their actual commencement ceremonies, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

Travis and the Chiefs play the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte on Sunday. Bank of America Stadium, the Panthers’ home stadium, is located roughly 100 miles from Appalachian State’s Kidd Brewer Stadium.

Nov 18, 2024; Arlington, Texas, USA; ESPN personality and former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce on set before the game between the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans at AT&T Stadium. (Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Image)

Earlier this week, a dispute over an autograph resulted in Kelce having a less than pleasant exchange with a fan.

After filming an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday night, a man directed a profanity-laced tirade at Kelce over the former Eagles lineman’s decision not to sign autographs for a group of people behind a fence. The incident, first reported by TMZ Sports, was captured on video.

Jason Kelce says being a father is one of the highlights of his life. (Photo by Andy Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Through the shouting, a calm Kelce attempted to explain his reasoning as he was about to get into a vehicle. “I have a habit of not signing for people that follow where I’m going,” Kelce said. 

The incident with the fan on Thursday comes just weeks after Kelce smashed someone’s phone after the unidentified person shouted a homophobic slur about Travis Kelce while Jason was walking near the Nittany Lions’ home stadium.

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Tom Marchitelli worked as an accountant for a hedge fund for eight years before setting up a side hustle that soon became his full-time business.

Marchitelli started a custom menswear clothing business called Gentleman’s Playbook a decade ago. Since then, he has accrued approximately 500 clients, the majority of whom are professional athletes in the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, and on the PGA Tour.

When The Athletic spoke with Marchitelli, he was heading to an airport in Dallas after a meeting with a baseball player.

In his role as personal designer, stylist and tailor, Marchitelli handpicks entire wardrobes for a clientele which includes Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. During the different pre-seasons across the United States’ various leagues, Marchitelli is rarely in one city for long. As well as working on a lookbook of outfits for specific events, the majority of his work centres around personalising entire collections of tunnel fits for the athletes he works with.

“Tunnel fits” is the phrase used to describe what sportsmen and women wear when they turn up at venues for games (‘fits’ being short for ‘outfits’).

Usually, athletes arrive in the tunnel beneath the arena wearing their best outfits, which is where the name derives from. Think of it as a pre-game runway, where players across sports in North America showcase their personalities through what they wear.

The most fashion-conscious athletes, such as Houston Texans’ Stefon Diggs or Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, will go big, but others prefer to keep it simple.

Kyle Kuzma was in the former camp, and is now the latter. The Washington Wizards forward recently announced his ‘retirement’ from the tunnel walk after taking the game to heights with choices including an incredibly oversized pink Raf Simons jumper and a black Rick Owens puffer jacket.

“I don’t want to be a part of that type of community where you have to put on a ’fit. I’m really taking a backseat to all of that,” Kuzma told Vogue in October.

While Kuzma has checked out and traded in a palate of high fashion for plain-tasting sweatsuits, in Europe, footballers are only just checking into the world of tunnel fits.

“It is a sport within sports (in the U.S.),” Marchitelli says. “Social media plays a huge role, because all major sports teams have media people who are in charge of photographing the players as they enter.

“That’s only been around, I would say maybe eight years, because when I first started, that (posting images of players arriving to games on social media) wasn’t a thing. And then it started becoming so visible.

Kyle Kuzma, pictured in 2022 (left) and 2021, has ‘retired’ from deliberate tunnel fits (Getty Images)

“You’re getting a close and personal look at what athletes look like when they’re not in their uniforms (team kit), and how they are choosing to express themselves. And, over time, players have taken more pride in how they show up for work.

“Another big factor that drives it is competition among players. These guys are trying to outdress guys on their team, guys on other teams across their sport, and even crossing over into other sports.

“When they show up to the arena, they’re given the uniform that they’re forced to wear, so they don’t have any real choices of self-expression other than their shoes, cleats (boots), maybe a wristband accessory or a headband. But the outfit that they wear to show up to the game, they’re able to express how they feel and how they want to look.”

Marchitelli could field a team in each men’s major sports league with the number of clients he has, but not a single one is a professional footballer despite MLS and NWSL teams having both dabbled in this subcultural movement.

In European football, tunnel fits are almost nonexistent. France international Jules Kounde led the way for Barcelona in recent seasons with his ensembled looks which blend vintage finds with high fashion. This season though, Barca players are no longer been allowed to arrive for games in their own clothes. This has led Kounde, a face now as recognisable in fashion quarters as much as football, capturing his fits to share with his followers on social media after matches instead.

Most teams have a strict club-tracksuits-only policy applied to matchday and this is one of the main reasons why pre-game tunnel fits have not yet taken off in football.

So where is the individuality? The answer to that does not yet reside in the underbelly of stadiums but in the car parks of the sport’s training grounds. Heading into training for your club or national team has slowly evolved into a time when players across the men’s and women’s games can showcase their style in the form of arrival fits.

Showing up for international duty, in particular, has become a moment for players to demonstrate their fashion prowess.

Last month, Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate arrived at France’s training ground wearing a neon green hood zipped over his face while his international team-mate Marcus Thuram, often bedecked in Balenciaga and Chrome Hearts, is among those also paving the way.

Konate arrives for international duty with France in October (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

Players of Argentina, Belgium and Portugal are three other standouts who consistently show up. Meanwhile, England — whose players include Louis Vuitton brand ambassador Jude Bellingham — are still strutting around in team-supplied Nike tracksuits, proving the trend has not completely caught fire everywhere.

“It was probably 2022 when that (arrival fits) wave really began,” Jordan Clarke, founder of Footballer Fits, a platform which celebrates footballer fashion, says.

Clarke noticed that Premier League team Crystal Palace had started putting pictures on Instagram of their players arriving at their south London training ground wearing their own clothes. After starting a conversation with the club, Footballer Fits and Palace have been collaborating on Instagram posts to showcase what players are wearing ever since.

“Now we’ve done it with Chelsea, Nottingham Forest, Anderlecht in Belgium, we’ve done it with Brentford a lot, we’ve done it with Crystal Palace Women, Chelsea Women — there are so many,” says Clarke, who hopes that arrival fits are a precursor to tunnel fits becoming a regular sight in football.

“I don’t want to leave anyone out, but we’ve done it with so many clubs and now you’re seeing Liverpool, Newcastle United and Manchester City maybe not doing it in collaboration with us, but they’re doing it (themselves) now, and that’s amazing to see.

“With training, there is a lot less pressure. They (clubs) can release photos midweek and whatever happens on the weekend, unless you’re a super-negative person, I don’t think people are going to link back to what the players wore to training as the reason why they lost.”

Siobhan Wilson is one of the players who has featured on Footballer Fits’ Instagram page in collaboration with her club, Birmingham City Women, and she would welcome an escape from the traditional pre-match tracksuit.

“It actually annoys me, you know — especially when you see what they are doing in the WNBA,” says the 30-year-old Jamaica international with a laugh. “I wish we did stuff like that here. They just want us to all look like clones of each other, but it’s fine.”

Wilson used to deliver mail while playing part-time for Palace. She now combines a full-time playing career at Birmingham, who are top of the second-tier Championship, with being a fitness influencer to 1.3million followers on TikTok.

“It’s nice for the fans to see players express themselves through what they’re wearing and their style,” she says. “You get to see people’s personalities by doing that, so it would be something that I would love to see more of.

“For me, I feel like if you’ve got like a nice ’fit on, and a good pair of shoes on, you just feel good. But I get the other side (players arriving in uniform tracksuits) too. It is a team game. You’re there to play as a team, so I get it from that standpoint, but wearing your own clothes and feeling comfortable in what you’re wearing: it allows you to be yourself a bit more.”

Martin Odegaard and Arsenal arriving in team gear to play Chelsea this month (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

Algen Hamilton is a designer and stylist from south London.

His break in the fashion industry arrived when he started styling looks for footballer friend Reiss Nelson, the Fulham winger (on loan from Arsenal) who he met at primary school aged four. Hamilton’s client list includes Trevoh Chalobah (Crystal Palace, on loan from Chelsea), Kai Havertz (Arsenal), Joe Willock (Newcastle), Ben Chilwell (Chelsea) and Mateo Kovacic (Manchester City).

“I’ll work with them constantly throughout the season, whenever they want to — when they have an event coming up or they have an awards ceremony or they’re going to a premiere,” Hamilton, 24, explains. “When it comes to arrival fits, those looks normally come from the wardrobe I create and I’ll update it multiple times in a year.

“I speak to them first about what they want to wear and what the vibe is that we are going for, if it’s different to before, where they are travelling to et cetera. Then I’ll go off, make the outfits and send them a message. They will tell me which outfits they love.

“So, for example, I’m working with Trevoh right now. We made a whole bunch of outfits, which he picked, and then there are brands who want to gift some stuff for winter.”

Amadou Onana, left, checks in for Belgium duty in 2023 (Nico Vereecken/Photo News via Getty Images)

Having worked with Chalobah on a full-time basis since 2021, Hamilton has watched the progression of football and fashion’s relationship firsthand.

“When I first started, players weren’t really going out there dressing up like they do now, and it wasn’t just the Premier League — we are talking La Liga (its Spanish equivalent) and the Bundesliga (the top division in Germany),” he says.

“Also, brands weren’t really opening up partnerships to football players either. As time has gone by, the popularity has grown and supporters are tapping into the player outside of the training ground and off the pitch. I feel like now, those opportunities are happening more. Players are more open with their fits and want to show them off.

“We have watched the game change bit by bit and it is only a matter of time for it to get to that stage where it’s like the sports are in America. But let’s not mix a step forward with progress, because it can be a step forward seeing teams do that (post-arrival fits on social media) but it doesn’t mean it’s actual progression for the teams to change their minds.

“The Premier League is very traditional. They’ll probably be the last league that will change how things are.

“It would be nice for the progress to be meaningful; for it (wearing an arrival outfit) not to be looked at as a distraction or as a moment where players aren’t focused on what the team objectives are, but to see it as an opportunity where players are expressing themselves.”

GO DEEPER

Footballers, modelling and the power of expression

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Peterson)