BEIJING - With a crooning coach, an unlikely leading scorer and a chip on their shoulders the size of the Great Wall, the U.S. women's soccer team is back in the Olympic gold-medal game.

Their 4-2 win over a skilled but overpowered Japan squad in yesterday's semifinal typified the profile of the team that has no Mia Hamm, no Julie Foudy, no Kristine Lilly . . . and no patience for being reminded of that.

Coach Pia Sundhage, the replacement for Greg Ryan after the World Cup fiasco, can't seem to get her team to awaken against top competition. As in the American loss to Norway in Game 1 here, Japan took a 1-0 lead that might have been much bigger, so soundly was Team USA outplayed.

Then they scored four goals in a row, two from Angela Hucles, a career reserve on the national team until top scorer Abby Wambach broke her leg just before the Olympics. Hucles leads the team with four goals here.

Again, they were fueled by tiresome group resentment.

"We're a bit of an underdog this year," said Carli Lloyd, a midfielder from Delran, N.J. "We've been getting fired up by that."

Well, they did lose the 2007 World Cup semifinal to Brazil, which they face Thursday for gold after Brazil's 4-1 win over Germany yesterday. Not only did they lose in the World Cup, they lost, 4-0, in China, no less, and they stepped in some nasty stuff afterward.

Ryan started veteran Briana Scurry over hot goalkeeper Hope Solo, and after the loss Solo publicly opined she would have made saves Scurry had not. Ryan allowed the team to briefly excommunicate Solo, then to ostracize her when she returned. He lost his job late last year.

Sundhage, blessed with sweet pipes, serenaded the group in her first team meeting with "Times, They are A-changin," a double message to her new team: Forget the scandal, and forget dump-and-chase soccer.

Solo is back in the fold - she has started each game here - although the historically chummy team dynamic has, predictably, changed. When Sundhage's possession-oriented style stalls, the dump-and-chase rears its head - but that's not always a bad thing.

After an undefeated run-up to the Olympics, the club sputtered in the opener but clicked by Game 4 against Canada. Luck played a part in that 2-1, overtime win; calling it "lucky," predictably, fueled this extra-sensitive group.

"It fired me up," said veteran Kate Markgraf, defensively.

She might have directed more of that defensive fire toward her opponents lately. Japan's goal yesterday came from an unmarked player who got behind Markgraf's defensive line, and she takes blame for one of Norway's two quick goals as well.

In the middle of it, Sundhage is stolid.

And, finally, Hucles is solid.

Sundhage was Hucles' coach in 2003 with the Boston Breakers.

"She was average," Sundhage said. "Then, she decided to get fit and change her speed."

It was Ryan, in fact, who told Hucles to tone it up after he took over the national team in 2005. Hucles played just two games in the 2004 Olympic run to gold; she wanted more.

In 2005, as a talented if softish 27-year-old, she began sport-specific offseason training at a Competitive Athletic Training Zone in Needham, Mass., stressing plyometrics, core strength and cardiovascular fitness. Over the past 3 years it has trimmed her down, sped her up and helped her last longer.

"She needed that quick burst of speed every time, both early in the game and late in the game. She completely changed her fitness level," said Mark Cinelli, her main trainer at CATZ, by phone yesterday. "It's amazing."

Smoothly, then, Hucles, now 30, finished a cross in the 41st minute of the game, about 4 minutes before the first half. That score lacked the sizzle of Lori Chalupny's one-on-one, three-player breakdown 3 minutes later that gave the United States a 2-1 halftime lead.

That grew to 3-1 just past the midpoint of second half when Heather O'Reilly stopped a throw-in with her left foot and volleyed it home on its first bounce. Hucles iced it 10 minutes later from an impossible right-side angle. She looked fresh.

"She has been one of the most important players on this team," Sundhage said. "She has made a big difference."

"It's funny. I don't see it that way," Hucles said. "I see it as a collective effort. What we've been able to take from Abby's injury is that it isn't just one person."

Indeed, Chalupny was the seventh player to score in the team's five games.

Said Hucles: "If Brazil is going to focus on me, it's not going to matter."

If the U.S. continues to focus on ancillary issues - who's not on the team, who's saying what about what happened in 2007, if it was lucky or not - it might find itself in the same situation on Thursday that it was the last time it played a tournament in China.

Perhaps Hucles can provide the rest of them with a bit of perspective, now that the Mount Rushmore of women's soccer has left them a legacy.

"It was great playing with them. But let's face it: This team hasn't won a major world championship," Hucles said. *