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REIMS, France — On Monday night, a little more than 24 hours before the United States was scheduled to meet Thailand in its first match of the World Cup, the American captain Alex Morgan and Coach Jill Ellis were answering questions at a packed news conference inside the Stade Auguste-Delaune.
After a benign first few minutes, the room tittered when a journalist picked up the microphone and wondered how Morgan and the team were approaching the defense of their 2015 World Cup title, “because,” as he noted, “in a few weeks time you could be the former world champions.