The 21st of August, 2008. For perhaps the first time in their history, the US women’s soccer team lines up for a game they are expected to lose. It’s the Olympic final in Beijing, and the USA face Brazil, who thrashed the Americans 4-0 in the World Cup semi-finals 11 months earlier.

After that loss, the headlines focused on the controversial decision to bench goalkeeper Hope Solo in favor of veteran Briana Scurry and Solo’s brutally candid postgame interview.

But Solo’s remarks overshadowed a far deeper problem. The USA, playing a dreary direct style, were nowhere near the level of Brazil. At best, Solo would’ve kept the score a little bit closer, but 4-0 was a fair reflection of the balance of play. The US women had never been beaten so badly.

Coach Greg Ryan, who had just suffered the only loss of his 55-game tenure, was out. To replace him, US Soccer looked to Europe, bringing in the ebullient Swede Pia Sundhage. Then before the Olympics, coincidentally against Brazil, the team’s main goalscoring threat, Abby Wambach, broke her leg in a horrific collision. She couldn’t play in China. “Nobody said it out loud, but there was a feeling of ‘shit – our goalscorer, our fearless leader won’t be with us for the Olympics,’” says Heather O’Reilly, one of a handful of players to start the 2007 semi-final and the 2008 final.

But the USA’s return to China didn’t start well, and they struggled to win their group. If not for an extra-time goal in the quarter-finals against Canada, the team wouldn’t have even made it from the far-flung satellite cities to Beijing for the semi-finals. Only the most optimistic US fan – or someone who hadn’t been paying attention – would think the USA had a good chance of winning the final.

16th minute: Angela Hucles takes a corner kick that skims the top of the crossbar. It’s a rare chance in the early going. The game hasn’t opened up the way it did in 2007 because both teams are able to possess and play patiently.

The Wambach injury left the US women rather thin in the attack. Kristine Lilly was pregnant. Free-wheeling Hawaiian Natasha Kai was back in the supersub role and scored the goal to beat Canada in the quarterfinals. The starting strike force was 21-year-old Amy Rodriguez, a rising senior at Southern Cal, and Angela Hucles, a veteran midfielder not known as a goalscorer until Sundhage pressed her into service at forward. She scored four goals in the Olympics, three of them in the knockout rounds.

“We always called her ‘Butter’ because she was extremely poised,” O’Reilly says.

34th minute: Marta, the Brazilian attacker in the midst of a five-year reign as Fifa Player of the Year, splits a couple of defenders but rushes her shot, whipping it into the side netting.

At right back was someone who had watched the 2007 final from an ESPN studio – Heather Mitts. She had embarked on a broadcast career – partially because she was good at it, partially because injuries kept derailing her career. She missed the 2003 World Cup with a broken leg, and she was doing commentary in 2007 because she tore an ACL earlier in the year. Now, in the 2008 final, she was facing Marta and plenty of other brilliant attackers. But Mitts was fulfilling her defensive duties and getting forward in the attack. And Marta was getting frustrated.

56th minute: A bit of shakiness in the Brazilian defense. Barbara, the 20-year-old goalkeeper, races out of the penalty area to play the ball even though the defenders weren’t under too much pressure. Brazil might have the better of play, but it’s not a vast difference.

The US philosophy had changed. Sundhage was leading a tactical revolution, and the US women were able to keep possession. Watching the 2007 and 2008 Brazil games back-to-back is like watching 10 years of evolution in less than a year. “Pia brought this European flair in terms of east-west, not just north and south,” O’Reilly says. “She really had [Shannon] Boxx and [Carli] Lloyd as pivot players, maestros in terms of switching the point.”

And Lloyd loved it.

“Playing in the midfield, you don’t oftentimes want to see the ball just being boomed up the field over your head,” Lloyd says. “That was the style that [Ryan] played. So when Pia came on board and said, ‘I want to play out of the back, I want to play through the midfield,’ suddenly I was really excited about that. I definitely think there was more creativity.”

72nd minute: Marta collects the ball. She slips past Mitts and Markgraf with a fortunate bounce and gets to the corner of the six-yard box. Solo is wrong-footed but raises her right arm and knocks it away for an astounding save. Marta, dumbfounded, buries her face in her hands. “Hope was on another level,” Lloyd says.

Like Mitts, Rodriguez had watched the 2007 World Cup. The young striker was just beginning her international career. But Rodriguez grew into her role quickly.

“I remember feeling extremely exhausted,” Rodriguez says. “I knew I had to keep pushing. I had players in my ear like Lindsay Tarpley and Heather O’Reilly who helping me out so much. They kind of put me under their wing and kept my pushing on.”

But she didn’t look exhausted. When Lloyd looked at the Brazilian players, she saw a different story. “When we looked over, they were hunched over and they were tired,” Lloyd says.

94th minute (extra time): Lauren Cheney makes a good run, and it’s played to Rodriguez, who shoots from 20 yards out.

Cheney, like Rodriguez, was still a college player – at UCLA, Southern Cal’s crosstown rival. She was initially an alternate on the Olympic squad. Then Wambach was injured – and called Cheney from the ambulance taking her away, telling her to get ready to go. The young attacker had played little in the Olympics through five games. But Sundhage had enough faith in her to toss her into a scoreless Olympic final in the 71st minute.

96th minute: Cheney takes a couple of touches and draws three defenders before playing the ball back to Lloyd, who plays a one-time backheel to Rodriguez ...

“The touch that I took ultimately cleared the path of the defenders,” Lloyd says. “I did a little Cruyff backheel into her feet.”

... Rodriguez holds off the defense but has no path forward. She drops it back to Lloyd ...

“I laid it off to Carli but it wasn’t a super clean layoff,” Rodriguez says. “It was really on Carli’s shoulders.”

... Lloyd takes one touch, veering a little wider at the top of the box. She shoots ...

“When I received the ball back, my touch beat everybody, and I was able to fire it far post with my left foot,” Lloyd says.

… It’s a speculative shot, not quite placed at the far post. But it’s dipping. And dangerous.

And it goes in. 1-0 USA. “I just remember being over-the-moon excited,” Rodriguez says. “What a relief that we were going to go up ahead.”

117th minute: Lloyd nearly makes it 2-0, hitting the far post after a sequence with Rodriguez, Cheney and Kai.

“The media counted us out pre-tournament,” Mitts says. “Everything that could have gone wrong in that first game against Norway did, but we also came together afterwards and looked one another in the eye and said let’s learn from that and win the next one. Our path was different but it was special. We had great team unity on and off the field and it showed throughout the tournament.”

120th minute: Brazil corner. Solo fights through traffic to punch it. Shot into side netting. Brazil cross. Hucles clears. Cristiane rises for a header in the middle of the box and sends it wide. Then it’s over.

It was a victory that proved the US were still the team to beat in women’s soccer. And for all the championships O’Reilly has won, 2008 holds a special place. “It still goes down as one of my favorite winning tournaments because it was really a contribution from everybody,” O’Reilly says.