Official Synopsis
In 2001, the tiny Pacific island of American Samoa suffered a world record 31-0 defeat at the hands of Australia, garnering headlines across the world as the worst soccer team on the planet. A decade after that humiliating night, they remain rooted to the bottom of FIFA’s World rankings, having scored only twice in seventeen years. They have lost every competitive game they have ever played. It would take a miracle-maker or a madman to turn the team’s fortunes around – and in maverick Dutch coach Thomas Rongen the islanders somehow find both. With the team about to embark on a grueling World Cup Qualification campaign, Rongen has just one month to transform this ragtag group of losers into a winning team – and perhaps learn a little about himself along the way.
The documentary starts off strong by explaining how bad things had gotten for American Samoa’s soccer team in 2001. Footage of the worst loss in professional soccer history helped to establish just how bad the soccer team was and how bottomless the poor hole they were falling in could be. In other words, the film really let you know from the get-go what you, the viewer, were up against when trying to cheer for American Samoa. It’s a pretty dramatic hole for the poor soccer team to dig out of year-in and year-out.
After the initial dip into the dreariness of Samoa’s situation, the film starts taking a turn. You get to see some behind the scenes of new defeats and how crazy the current coach of the team could get. He starts out encouraging and supportive to this team, but with each passing game you hear and see his disgust and disdain for taking control of the rag-tag bunch. What’s also sadly impressive in this portion of the film is how over a period of time you see players go from excited and hopeful to downright demolished after each impending loss. The film does everything right in conveying the gradual hopelessness of their situation in soccer, even when things start to look up.
Of course, the documentary doesn’t keep rolling that direction.
Soon after another losing season, the president of the American Samoa team asks for help from the United States and gets it through former Dutch coach Thomas Rongen. Rongen, unlike the Samoa coach before him, doesn’t take shit from his players or the organization. He brings a rough and tough ideal to the beaten team and goes all ‘Remember the Titans’ on their techniques and attitudes. Tough love, but still maintains respect for the game and, more importantly for the players. In a natural upswing story way, he breaks each player down and rebuilds them into something stronger.
Properly, the documentary during this time period starts going through the American Samoa roster, giving a backstory to certain key players. You get to learn about a transgender player named Jaiyah Sealua, what she’s been through in her life and how she joined the soccer team. You also get to know Nicky Salapu, the infamous goal keeper for the 2001 team. The documentary does a great job with giving you some perspective about the soccer team and adding some much needed personality to American Samoa soccer roster. This portion of the film gives life to the story and makes it more than just a game.
As expected, the soccer team hits an upswing, though brief (but hopeful). The film pretty much kind of ends after a few games under Rongen.
Ultimately, this story of redemption is played out as predictable as you would imagine. I liked how life certainly turned for the players and for the organization. I love when underdogs win. Having said that, the only criticism I can give to the film, and I’m not sure it could help this, is that the ending seemed to be a lot lighter and uncertain than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, hope grows at the end of the documentary (and how could it not?), but it seemed to end abruptly. I wanted a bit more proof in the pudding than it provided. It’s a bit selfish, but with such a large hill to climb, the documentary, team and coach just deserved a bit more to the ending.
I also wanted to know and see more about coach Rongen. There’s no doubt that he certainly brought a more professional formula to a team that needed it, but a bit more concentration on his technique would have built his legend up a bit more and made his eventual success more meaningful. The concentration on his life and development on film seemed to be a bit shallow. The film certainly isn’t bad because of it, but I wanted more of him in the movie.
At the end of the day, the movie still pulls through, much like the team the story talks about. It’s not perfect, but it does what it can to succeed.