Olympic Games: Record-breaking Brazil set bar high

FIFA :    From the moment Brazil took the field at the Millennium Stadium for their opening game against Cameroon, a record was already on the way to being broken.

As soon as the whistle blew, Seleção midfielder Formiga became the only player to have appeared in at least one game at every Women’s Olympic Football Tournament since the inaugural edition at Atlanta 1996.

Yet there was still one more record left to be broken during an emphatic Brazilian win in Cardiff. Ten minutes from full time with the score standing at 3-0, striker Cristiane, brought off the bench at the interval in place of Thais Guedes, got on the end of an accurate pass from Marta before dribbling round keeper Annette Ngo Ndom and firing home. That goal was Cristiane’s 11th in the history of the Games, taking her beyond the ten-goal record she had previously shared with Germany’s now-retired Birgit Prinz and clear in first place as the competition’s all-time top scorer.

After the game, smiling from ear to ear, the prolific front-runner explained just why she was so thrilled to have got on the scoresheet. “Well, of course it’s brilliant to get the record. I knew that I was level in the standings and needed one more to go clear, but that’s not the only reason I’m happy,” she told FIFA.com.