Benoit Tessier/Reuters
LYON, France — Rose Lavelle was 9½ — the half is important, when you’re 9 — when the women that changed everything arrived in Cincinnati.
It was October 2004, a few months after the United States women’s soccer team had won the gold medal in the Athens Olympics, five years after it had conquered the world. Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain and the rest were traveling the country, playing exhibition games, as a sort of victory tour.
Lavelle was there to watch at the Paul Brown Stadium for a game against New Zealand. It was more of a carnival than a contest: the Americans won, 6-0, the sort of procession that — in the eyes of a child — befitted their greatness.