Brazil reached the last 16 of the Women’s World Cup as star player Marta made history scoring a record 17th World Cup goal to seal a victory gainst Italy on Tuesday.
The 33-year-old had moved earlier matched the tally of Germany men’s team legend Miroslav Klose’s haul of 16 goals with her penalty in a 3-2 defeat to Australia in Brazil’s second Group C match.
Legends of the game ⚽
Congrats, #Marta! ??? pic.twitter.com/mJTnvMf9bS
— Germany (@DFB_Team_EN) June 18, 2019
And six time world player Marta didn’t have to wait for another match as she moved one clear of Klose when she scored again from 12 yards to open the scoring in Valenciennes in the 74th minute.
Referee Lucila Venegas pointed to the spot when Elena Linari made a clumsy challenge on Debinha and Marta made no mistake to send Laura Giuliani the wrong way to make history.
The narrow victory over Italy sent the South Americans through on third positionaaqand they now look set to face hosts France in the next round in Le Havre on Sunday, unless a relatively unlikely combination of results later this week puts them on a path to meet Germany on Saturday instead.
In another match of the group Australia thrashed Jamaica 4-1 to move second above the Canaries on goal difference.