Marta Vieira Da Silva

Somewhere in the heart of northeastern Brazil, about nine degrees south of the Equator and a couple of hundred miles inland from where the Brazilian coast bulges out into the Atlantic, two rivers converge. There, painted in pastel hues, is the clapboard town of Dois Riachos, little more than a dot on the map in the huge cotton, rice, sugar and tobacco producing state of Alagoas. Flash past on Brazil's route 316, perhaps on the way to Maceio and the sea, and you would hardly notice it.

It won't show up in the NBA statistics, but that was some steal Kobe Bryant made Thursday. On an afternoon when Brazil's Marta, the top women's soccer player on the planet, was being introduced by the Los Angeles Sol in Carson, Bryant flew in by helicopter after Lakers practice and walked off with the show. By the time he left the Home Depot Center, he had the Sol players giggling like star-struck teenagers, all eager to be photographed alongside him. Naturally, Bryant obliged.