43-year-old Brazilian retires from International Football

By Emmanuel Oladele - 43-year-old Brazilian, Miraildes Maciel Mota, commonly called Formiga will play her final match for the Brazil National Women's Football Team this month after an outstanding career which includes, seven World Cup and Olympics appearances.

The Legend will don the Brazil's yellow-and-green Jersey for the last time of her International career when Brazil face India in Manaus on Thursday, November 25th, as confirmed by the Brazilian Football Confederation, CBF.

The midfielder who already had 233 caps won two Olympics silver medals (2004 and 2008). She also appeared for Brazil in Tokyo Olympics Games, where Brazil were eliminated by Canada in the quarter-final, she was in that game starting line-up. Formiga is the only player to have played in all seven editions of the Women's Olympics Football Tournament.

She started her professional career with São Paulo in 1993, where she made 111 appearances, scoring 54 goals before leaving the club in 1997 to join Portuguesa.

She has also played for several other club like; Santa Isabel, Santos, Independente, Malmö FF Dam, New Jersey Wildcats, Jersey Sky Blue, Saad, Botucatu, FC Gold Pride, Chicago Red Stars, São José, before joining Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 where she made 68 appearances before parting ways with the club in June 2021 to join the club of her origin São Paulo, She signed a contract that will keep her at the club until December 2022.

She made her debut for the Brazil National Women's Football Team in 1995 at the age of 17, and She is the only footballer in either men's or women's football to have featured in seven world cups, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. The legendary number 8 is saying farewell to International Football.