Chicago Red Stars' Brazilian Striker Cristiane Tries to Heat up the Cold

Cristiane first knew she wanted to be a soccer player at age seven.

Unfortunately, unlike her American teammates, there was no organized opportunity for her to hone her skills in her native Brazil.

"I had to take every opportunity I could find to play pick up games in the neighborhood with boys, mostly," the Red Stars' scoring leader explained.

Cristiane came to the WPS and the Red Stars after playing for the Brazilian National Team and also playing professional soccer in Sweden and Germany.

She was surprised how cold it is in Chicago—it was rather hard to bear at first.

Comparing her experience in Europe with her WPS experience, Cristiane said there are a few good teams in Europe that may be up to WPS standards, but that the leagues in Europe are not as competitive. Instead of each team being almost equal in talent, there are a few teams at the top of the European leagues, and the rest are not very good.

She says the level of organization and overall caliber of talent in the WPS makes it the best league she's ever played in.

Cristiane says the one thing that has surprised her more than anything else is that she knew certain things about international players from other countries she had played against, but learned much more about them—some very surprising things about them as players and people—when she's played on the same club with them.