Brazil’s opponent in the football final is the daughter of an NBA legend

Brazil is looking for its first gold medal in women’s football. The final of the Paris tournament takes place this Saturday (10), at 12 pm (Brasília time), against the strong United States team, at the Parc des Princes stadium.

The match, which could mark Marta’s farewell to the Brazilian national team, has another candidate to star: Trinity Rodman, the top scorer for the North American team. The forward has been decisive in this campaign, having already scored three goals, one of which was the winning goal against Japan in the quarterfinals of the Olympic Games.

Trinity is the youngest daughter of the legendary Dennis Rodman, who built a hall of fame basketball career in the 80s and 90s, with five NBA titles, two of them with the Detroit Pistons and three consecutive with the Chicago Bulls.

One of the greatest defenders in the history of the sport, Dennis now sees his daughter shine in the United States’ attack. However, the 22-year-old sees similarities in her game to her father’s.

“The hunt for the goal, the hunt when you lose the ball, that’s a big part of my game that resembles his. Even when he wasn’t the closest to the basket or when he was close to Shaquille O’Neal, who was much bigger than him, he could get the ball back. It was timing, anticipation, body movement, positioning, that was everything,” he said.

“He was very intelligent and people take that for granted. He was an insane athlete, but one of the smartest players in the game,” Trinity concluded.

However, the relationship between the two is not the best. Dennis, involved in controversies throughout his career, was not a present father and his upbringing was left solely to his mother, Michelle Moyer. With his third wife, he had another son besides Trinity, DJ Rodman, who also follows a sports career and now plays college basketball.

Fábio Wolff, managing partner of Wolff Sports, a sports marketing agency, believes that the player has been growing on and off the field at the right time and will reap the rewards of the excellent Paris Olympics. Wolff is a member of the organizing committee of the Brasil Ladies Cup, an international women’s soccer tournament.

“Women’s soccer is full of great talents, and Trinity is yet another example that makes the sport proud. The US team is once again the favorite to win the gold medal, with Rodman standing out in attack, but Brazil is on a roll after eliminating Spain, the current world champion. It will be a great game. All athletes need a platform to show their worth, and here in our country, the Brazil Ladies Cup promotes this, with exchanges with teams from other nations,” says Wolff.

Trinity’s professional career kicked off in January 2021. At the time a student at Washington State University, the 18-year-old was selected second in the Draft by the Washington Spirit, of the NWSL, the United States women’s soccer league.

Her professional debut came a few months later, in April, against the North Carolina Courage. The forward needed just five minutes on the field to score her first career goal. Her first call-up came soon after, at just 19 years old, in the match against the Czech Republic, in early 2022.