BEIJING — We counted them out, and they know it.

And when we saw them last weekend at a team press conference, and we kept asking about the one U.S. soccer player who wasn’t there, instead of the 18 women who were, it steamed them.

“You guys can write what you want,” said veteran defender Kate Markgraf. “But we all got fired up by that press conference.”

She’s right. Most of the Olympic media who attended the team’s press conference seemed to be there to do the Abby Wambach story — the fallen superstar, out with a broken leg, and how the U.S. women were going to be lost without her.

But that’s not the story of this Team USA that will play Brazil for the Olympic gold medal Thursday.

“I just think this is a team sport,” midfielder Heather O’Reilly said. “And what we have done as a team, I think, has been incredible. We were just hoping that that would be recognized.”

Wambach, however, has always been a hard person to ignore. Tall and aggressive, and with a personality to match, Wambach scored the winning goal for the U.S. team in the finals of the 2004 Olympics.

On July 16, just before the team left to begin its pre-Beijing preparations, Wambach broke her left leg in a collision with Brazil defender Andreia Rosa. Her 99 career goals with the U.S. national team are going to be hard to replace.

But when one window closed, a door swung open.

“We don’t have one star, but we have 18 players, a team,” coach Pia Sundhage said after a 4-2 semifinal victory over Japan.

They were still reeling from Wambach’s loss, though, still trying to learn about themselves, when they fell behind Norway, 2-0, in the first five minutes of their Olympic opener.

“That was a very emotional game,” said team captain Christie Rampone. “First game without Abby, first Olympic game for a lot of young players. The pressure, the emotions. It was a rollercoaster. Those first four minutes seemed like a bad dream.”

It was a wakeup call, the U.S. women said.

“That game gave us no choice,” Markgraf said. “We could go home or we could get it done.”

Wambach scored six goals in six matches at the 2007 Women’s World Cup. Seven different players have scored the 11 goals that the U.S. women have at this Olympics.

As Sundhage hoped, new scorers have emerged, like Angela Hucles and Lori Chalupny. Hucles had four goals in the five Olympic matches before the finals.

More than that, personalities are emerging in the absence of Wambach’s sometimes overwhelming one.

They won’t directly say it. But the message is there when they talk about the “new freedom” and “coming together” that the team feels.

“The big difference,” Markgraf said, “is that there are 18 teammates on this team, instead of one superstar.””

The team will have its work cut out for itself against Brazil, which defeated Germany 4-1 in the other semi.

Brazil is also the team that knocked off the Americans in the semifinals of the 2007 World Cup.

“We’re pumped. Bring it on,” O’Reilly said. “We’ve played Brazil before, and we know they’re a pretty awesome team with a lot of great personalities. But this team, player for player, is unified and strong, and we’re together. We’re looking forward to it.”

When the players who were at the weekend news conference returned to their teammates, they told their teammates that all the media wanted to talk about was Abby, and how they were “lost without Abby.”

Fine, whatever, they said after the win over Japan. Think what you want about this U.S. Olympic soccer team.

“We were all kind of shocked at the questions,” said Markgraf. “We thought you’d be embracing the fact that we had so many goal scorers on this team, not ignoring it.

“I don’t know. It sure fired me up.”