REIMS, France — The referee’s whistle reverberated through the Stade Auguste-Delaune late Tuesday night, and Sukanya Chor Charoenying, the goalkeeper for the Thailand national soccer team, bent over, put her hands on her knees and stared straight down at the ground.
Thirteen times over the previous 90 minutes she had watched the ball whiz beyond her grasp and into the goal. Thirteen times she turned to retrieve it. Thirteen times she watched the United States players celebrate, every time as ecstatically as the time before, as music blared deafeningly from the speakers and the pro-American crowd at the sold-out stadium howled in delight.