When the ball left the right foot of Karen Irasema Luna de los Santos, little did she know. Little did any of us know.

She had collected the ball deep in her own end, her El Tri teammates having dispossessed the American attack. She took a few quick touches and then launched an improbable pass far upfield and across the pitch to the feet of Mayra Pelayo-Bernal streaking up the left wing.

It was unthinkable. It was uncanny. It was brilliant. With her thirty-fifth-ranked side clinging to a precarious one goal lead early in extra time against the second-ranked and perennial superpower United States Women’s National Team, she would be expected simply to clear the ball, to be content with getting it out of her own end, getting it out of trouble, giving her teammates a moment’s pause to collect themselves and regroup.

But she did not merely clear the ball. She sent the soaring, implausible, astonishing pass across the field to Pelayo. She left the match commentators scrambling for words. Did she or didn’t she? Did she mean to make that pass or was it just a case of a rushed clearance that happened to find a teammate?

Her entire game up to that point had been brilliant — marking and denying, finding space, applying pressure. There can be no reason to believe that remarkable pass was anything but what she intended. But little did she know. Little did any of us know what Pelayo would do next.

Tracked down the bouncing ball. Five deft touches with the right foot running at her defender. Two quick stepovers, a slight tap of the ball to create space and then …

When the ball left the right foot of Mayra Alejandra Pelayo-Bernal she knew. We all knew. It was beautiful. It was audacious. It was glorious. It held in its flight all the effort and emotion her El Tri sisters had poured out of themselves for ninety-plus minutes, all the pent up hopes of a Mexican side denied by their neighbor to the north in sixteen straight matches, all the exquisite joy of a moment in time never to be forgotten.

The ball left the right foot of Mayra Alejandra Pelayo-Bernal and flew hard and straight and true, leaving the leaping goalkeeper no chance, landing in the upper right corner of the back of the net, and, in that instant, birthing a legend.