REIMS, France — The Dutch swaggered through the streets as if they owned the town, a tidal wave of orange hats and orange shirts and orange banners and orange everything. Having occupied the center of Reims before the Netherlands played Canada on Thursday at the Women’s World Cup, they were now marching toward Auguste-Delaune stadium, ready to take possession of that, too.

But in the middle of their joyous procession they suddenly found themselves in the face of the enemy, such as it was: a small quiet clump of Canadians huddled together with their little Maple Leaf flags and (in one case) a Toronto Raptors basketball jersey.

One could sense what was coming next — nationalistic posturing, some effort to reduce the Canadians to small wads of North American embarrassment — until it became clear that was not happening at all. The Canadians melted into the Dutch crowd, and they all marched to the game together.

“We were at the FIFA welcome center, and it was hard to find Canadian fans, so we decided to tag along,” explained one of the Canadians, David Routledge.