She is also president of a men’s team in the Thai Premier League. After Sunday’s World Cup match against Sweden, she flew home to Bangkok on business but also found time to watch her club win a domestic cup match. She was scheduled to return to France for Thailand’s final group match on Thursday, against Chile.

She is already a familiar face to many. After Thailand’s captain, Kanjana Sung-Ngoen, scored in the waning minutes against Sweden, Lamsam began crying and hugged her team’s coach. Later, she smiled broadly in a team photo, holding her right hand aloft as many players gave a thumbs up. It was impossible to tell from the jubilant photo that Sweden, not Thailand, had prevailed by 5-1.

“Winning or losing is not as important as having the heart and spirit back from a feisty performance,” Lamsam wrote on her Instagram account.

Thirteen years ago, after working with disabled athletes, she became the team’s general manager at the request of a former president of the Thai soccer federation. Lamsam had never played soccer and had no experience in the sport. But she agreed to take on the role after meeting the players, and has since become one of a very small but powerful group of benefactors of women’s soccer in countries where players have been largely ignored, dismissed and severely underfunded.

“She’s not just a manager to us; she’s like a mother,” Ainon Phancha, a Thai defender, said Wednesday. “She’s the head of the family.”