HAZEBROUCK, France — There is no plaque at the tiny stadium here. Nothing to commemorate the long-ago match. Some players say they had no idea of its immediate significance until the final whistle. One of the best players was absent, unable to get the day off from work.

And only decades later did the soccer officials who long ignored the women’s game, and allowed it to be banned in England, France and Germany, append a larger, contrived meaning to the game. As if history could be attached like an artificial hip.

On April 17, 1971, a chilly Saturday night, France defeated the Netherlands, 4-0, at Stade Auguste Damette. About 1,000 spectators showed up to watch the French midfielder Jocelyne Ratignier dazzle with a hat trick. Afterward, some French players say, they were informed that it had been a qualifying match for an unofficial Women’s World Cup to be played in August of that year in Mexico. Some remember a toast of Champagne.

At the turn of the 21st century, FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, decided to recognize that France-Netherlands game as the first official women’s international match. It was no such thing. England and Scotland had played in the late 1800s. In 1920, a French team played a team from England, before which the captains kissed each other on the cheek for good luck and sportsmanship — eliciting perhaps the first international media moment for women’s soccer.