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Had her team stayed true to the characters Nike ads have tried to create for them, everyone would have kicked the ball into their own goal.

But they managed not to, and in fact came back against Germany's squad, Deutscher Fussball-Bund, also a No. 1 seed, in order to win a 3-2 victory.

The D.C. outbreak of Women's World Cup madness, held at the frustratingly confusing and onerously negotiated architectural nightmare known as Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, began at 7:07 p.m. and was broadcast live on ESPN. Though the stadium didn't sell out by any stretch, an international crowd of 54,642 filled the seats. But a plurality of the fans seemed to be, not surprisingly, American.

(This conclusion came from the fact that, while fans from other countries sing mellifluous anthems, warble spicy slang tunes and even bring instruments to create a never-ending din of tribal support, we stick to the aggressively simple "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!")

The race for the Women's World Cup has been drawing impressively dense crowds. A full 78,792 attended the opener at Giants Stadium, 65,080 came to Chicago's Soldier Field and 50,484 attended the last game in Massachusetts' Foxboro Stadium. The D.C. event was hyped for the Redskins' new arena, which regularly draws capacity crowds of 80,116, but women's soccer, like most women's sports, is still finding its audience.

Actually, organizers originally had only planned on a D.C. attendance of 41,000, and the third-tier nosebleeds were to be kept as lifeless as the surface of Venus. But in response to late pleas for tickets, part of the top deck was opened up for the 13,000 or so newcomers.

It was a revved-up and remarkably white crowd: young girls with their parents; patriotically face-painted Gen X-ers; enthusiastic revelers who had wrapped themselves, without irony, in the American flag. Many of the girls wore the No. 9 jersey of Mia Hamm, the so-called Michael Jordan of women's soccer and 1998 ESPN award winner, who grew up in northern Virginia.

Meanwhile, international visitors in town for diplomatic, academic or touristic pursuits were happy that their host country seemed to finally be joining the rest of the world in enjoying one of the best sports on earth.

But there weren't a whole lot of Americans cheering in the first half, truth be told -- not even me, and I'll root against Germany in anything.

The badly shot ball, called an "own-goal," occurred when some German players approached Chastain, 30, who kicked the ball back for goalie Briana Scurry to recover safely. But miscommunication got in the way of the plan, and Scurry ran to the sideline as Chastain kicked the ball down the middle.

The ignominy of an own-goal can't be overstated: The most notorious recent example occurred during the men's 1994 World Cup, when Colombia player Andres Escobar handed the United States a 2-1 win with such a mistake. Not long after, Escobar was murdered.

Ten or so minutes after the own-goal, U.S. forward Tiffeny Milbrett scored off a deflected boot from midfielder Michelle Akers, bringing the score to 1-1. The U.S. team continued to fire shot after shot through the rest of the first half -- seven other times in all -- but came up with goose eggs every time.

The disciplined Germans, conversely, had a much higher shooting percentage, taking only three shots on goal and scoring once. At the end of the half, Bettina Wiegmann -- the 1997 German "Footballer of the Year" -- popped one in with help from her fellow midfielder Sandra Smisek.

The score stood at 2-1 at the half. Tenacious superstar Mia Hamm hadn't been able to accomplish much of anything -- unlike in the team's first two victories, against Denmark and Nigeria, when she was given much of the credit for leading the American squad into the winner's circle. (On May 22, in a 3-0 win over Brazil, Hamm became the No. 1 all-time career goal scorer.)

In their first three games of the tournament, the American female footballers had kicked ass as well as soccer balls, outscoring their opponents by a combined total of 13-1. But this battle proved far tougher. Germany came on strong, and stayed disciplined and tenacious, while Chastain's mistake seemed to hold most of the women in a vise grip throughout the half.

The sticky D.C. summer humidity hung in the air along with the crowd's disappointment.

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