Taika Waititi’s sports comedy, Next Goal Wins, is based on the true underdog story of the American Samoa national football team and one coach’s triumphant efforts to lead them to victory in a World Cup qualifying match. Waititi co-wrote the screenplay with The Inbetweeners co-creator Iain Morris, chronicling Dutch-American football coach Thomas Rongen’s tenure at the American Samoa national team. In the role of Rongen, Michael Fassbender leads a star-studded cast that includes Elisabeth Moss, Rachel House, Will Arnett, Rhys Darby, and Waititi himself. Most sports movies tell uplifting stories about underdogs, but Next Goal Wins has the distinction of being based on a true story.
A movie about football is a radical tonal departure for Waititi on the heels of two Thor films, but Next Goal Wins shares the same theme of maintaining courage and determination in the face of adversity and insurmountable odds. The all-powerful God of Thunder isn’t quite as much of an underdog as the American Samoa football team, whose reputation was defined by their record-breaking loss to Australia before Rongen came along and turned the team around. The true story of American Samoa’s World Cup qualification was fascinating enough to inspire both a documentary and a Hollywood feature.
On April 11, 2001, after 30 consecutive defeats – including a 13-0 loss to Fiji and a 15-0 loss to Vanuatu (via the Daily Mail) – American Samoa suffered the worst defeat in football history when Australia beat them 31-0 (via FourFourTwo). The top-scoring player of the game was Archie Thompson (via the BBC), who broke the record for most goals scored by a player in an international match with a grand total of 13 goals. American Samoa’s coach at the time, Tunoa Lui, faced an uphill battle in anticipation of the Australia game.
FIFA threw Lui the unexpected curveball that every player he picked for Oceania’s first-round, five-team World Cup qualification tournament in Australia had to carry a valid U.S. passport, which significantly limited his options. Lui found that 19 of the 20 players he had chosen would be ineligible. Some of the players in American Samoa’s revised line-up had never played a full 90-minute football match in their lives. This led to the team losing 31-0, a loss that would haunt them for years that followed. For a decade, the heaviest defeat in football history defined the American Samoa national team’s legacy. In 2011, the team finally turned it around.
In 2011, when the qualifying rounds for the World Cup were coming up, the Football Federation American Samoa brought in a new coach for American Samoa’s national team. Rongen was hired to get the team ready for the qualifications in the hope that the team could compete in the then-upcoming World Cup. Explaining his decision to take the job as head coach for one of the world’s weakest football teams, Rongen said (via the BBC), “I love to travel and take on new opportunities and this was a unique one, to say the least. They were ranked last, so I felt they couldn’t get any worse.”
Rongen began his football career as a player in the 1970s. He briefly played as a defensive midfielder and defender at Ajax in his native Netherlands before moving to the United States, where he played alongside fellow Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff and Manchester United’s George Best at the Los Angeles Aztecs. He began his coaching career as an assistant with the Pope John Paul II High School boys’ team in 1984. When he started working with the American Samoa team, Rongen’s bullish attitude initially clashed with the Football Federation American Samoa. But his coaching style quickly started yielding results.
Rongen Coached American Samoa To Their Second-Ever Win Against Tonga
Under Rongen’s leadership, American Samoa managed to win its first international match in 17 years – the second-ever victory for the team – on November 22, 2011 (via the Daily Mail). The game was a qualifying match for the 2014 World Cup. American Samoa got a two-goal lead on Tonga, thanks to Ramin Ott scoring a 40-yard strike in the 44th minute due to a goalkeeping error and Kaneti Falela chipping the ball in the 74th minute. Tonga scored one goal in the game with three minutes to go, but American Samoa won the match.
When American Samoa registered a 2-1 victory against Tonga in the first round of Oceania’s World Cup qualification, Rongen said, “This is going to be part of soccer history, like the 31-0 against Australia was part of history.” With Rongen at the helm, the American Samoa national team ultimately made it to the 173rd spot in the FIFA World Rankings. Before Rongen came along, American Samoa was tied for the 204th and last positions in the FIFA World Rankings, and had been outscored 229-12 since beginning their international career in 1994.
Jaiyah Saelua Is The First Transgender Player To Compete In A World Cup Qualifier
One of the most renowned players on the American Samoa national team is its center back, Jaiyah Saelua. Saelua identifies as faʻafafine, a non-binary gender in Samoan culture, and gained recognition as the first transgender player to compete in a FIFA World Cup qualifier. Saelua initially took up football at age 11 (via The Guardian) and her first coach was Nicky Salapu, American Samoa’s most famous footballer, who was the goalkeeper during their notorious 2001 loss to Australia. Waititi considered casting Saelua as herself in Next Goal Wins (via Bleeding Cool), but instead cast Kaimana, a fellow Samoan fa‘afafine.
Saelua said in an interview with Football in Oceania that being a spokesperson for the trans community wasn’t something she planned on as part of her career: “I’m nothing but a football player for my country… It just so happens that I’m transgender, in western terminology.” Despite not planning to become an ambassador for LGBTQ+ athletes, Saelua has taken on the responsibility of representation and social justice: “Being the first transgender [player] has opened up the door to the international arena where I could advocate for something bigger than myself.”
Next Goal Wins Is Also A 2014 Documentary
Next Goal Wins is a Hollywood feature film adaptation of the 2014 documentary of the same name by directors Mike Brett and Steve Jamison. Rongen, Saelua, and Salapu appear prominently in the documentary, along with the rest of the team. The doc was released in 2014, with a premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, and received universal acclaim from critics, resulting in a rare 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Next Goal Wins won the Best Documentary award at the British Independent Film Awards and the Special Jury Award in the documentary competition at the 2014 Abu Dhabi Film Festival.
The American Samoa team had been reluctant to let camera crews document them in the past because their heart was never in the right place. Jamison explained (via Screen Daily), “They said everybody had been wanting to take the mickey. We wanted to celebrate the fact that they wanted to keep playing.” The team allowed Jamison and Brett to bring their cameras onto the field and tell the story that became Next Goal Wins because they thought it was admirable, rather than comical, that they kept playing in the face of defeat. The doc’s inspirational underdog story can be appreciated by football fanatics and non-fans alike.
