Orlando Pride’s determination to ensure that their “one-in-a-billion” Brazilian Marta won her first National Women’s Soccer League championship title helped focus their resolve to get over the line, says the team’s goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse.
The 38-year-old Marta, who was named as Fifa’s women’s footballer of the year six times between 2006 and 2018, had spent seven seasons with Orlando without lifting a trophy before the team became only the second in the NWSL to win the league winner’s shield and the championship title in the same campaign after defeating Washington Spirit 1-0 in Saturday’s final. Marta’s compatriot Luana, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in April, missed the final but did feature in the semi-final.
“We just had a sense of calm about us,” said Moorhouse, an uncapped member of the England squad preparing to face the United States at Wembley on Saturday. “I don’t think anyone was overly stressed. Everyone knew the job they had to do. Everyone knew what we were fighting for. Obviously we have Luana, who beat cancer this year. We have Marta, who is Marta. We had to bring it home for Marta. So I think we just had this calmness, this stillness, and belief that we were just going to do it.
“She [Marta] is incredible, I think she’s one in a million, one in a billion, she’s one of one. She’s just an incredible human first and foremost. I remember my first interaction with her, she said: ‘Hi, I’m Marta.’ I said: ‘You don’t need to introduce yourself!’ She’s got so much passion for the game. She wants to win everything and it’s infectious.”
Orlando’s triumph followed NWSL finishes of 10th and seventh in 2022 and 2023 respectively and Moorhouse was asked why they had made such improvements. “I think we’ve had consistency,” she said. “Consistency in turnover of players, turnover of coaching staff, background staff. We’ve kept the same group of players, kind of, from last year to this year. We’ve added a couple of pieces where we needed to strengthen things but yes, I think ‘consistency’. As a team, we didn’t really listen to pressures from outside, from the media, from opposing teams’ fans and stuff like that. We were just so focused on getting the job done and bringing the trophy home.”
Moorhouse is hoping to earn her first England cap against the US or in Tuesday’s game against Switzerland. She set an NWSL regular-season record of 13 clean sheets this term. The former Arsenal, West Ham and Bordeaux player received her first senior England call-up at the age of 29 in July from Sarina Wiegman and spoke then about the emotion of being called up after such a long wait.
She is hoping to show she can bring something different to the Dutch head coach’s options and earn a place at next summer’s European Championship. “Mary [Earps] and Hannah [Hampton] are really good goalkeepers in their own rights respectively,” she said. “I think I can add a little bit of something different. I’m very tall, obviously. I think that’s a big part of my game – I come out for crosses, I’m commanding in those areas. I think I can add something different.
“I definitely want to be a part of the Euros squad. That’s definitely on my mind and that’s definitely something I will be looking forward to if I get that chance. I need to have a good start of the [2025] season with Orlando. Hopefully I can impress Sarina in this camp and the other camps that I’ve been on so that I get another call in the February camp and I can get on that plane to Switzerland.”
