‘Air Punches and Tears’: Why Next Goal Wins is my feel-good movie | soccer

IIt seems appropriate, after the 2026 World Cup draw featuring small island newcomers Curacao and Cape Verde, to revisit Next Goal Wins, an underdog story I embraced upon first viewing as if it were a team I would follow loyally for the rest of my life.

The documentary chronicles the world’s worst soccer team (once), American Samoa, and their valiant efforts to qualify for the 2014 World Cup, but to describe it as just a soccer movie is to miss a perfect study of the fascinating characters, circumstances, and life of the less-seen island. You don’t need to be a sports fan to go up here.

We start with the American Samoa national soccer team’s worst day ever: a world record, 31-0 defeat at the hands of Australia in 2001, still the worst loss in the history of international soccer. Goalkeeper Nicky Salapo is the only player left from that fateful day, and despite his upbeat personality, the scars remain. The cloud of defeat still follows the team everywhere.

Cameras descend on the island as the team prepares for the South Pacific Games in New Caledonia. American Samoa has never won a competitive match and sits at the bottom of the FIFA rankings. Their facilities are modest, training courses must fit around players’ multiple job and church commitments, and the island’s talent pool is limited by the small population and the inevitable exodus of young men leaving to join the US military. In training, shots fly comically wide as if the target itself is blocking them, and dribbling skills are no better as drills are carried out against an idyllic island backdrop of dense, forested mountains.

The American Samoa Football Association reportedly rejected multiple approaches from television and film crews before filming Next Goal Wins for fear of ridicule. By contrast, directors Mike Britt and Steve Jamison tread carefully throughout the film, never patronizing or belittling their subjects, while still capturing the humor with a sensitive and compassionate eye.

The team isn’t doing much to challenge its reputation at the South Pacific Games, but coach Larry Manao still spreads positives when he can. “They needed nine goals today – I only gave them eight. It’s a step. All these steps are going in the right direction.”

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so the NFL is advertising for a coach position. Someone answers: Thomas Rongen, a former football player and coach, originally from the Netherlands and looking for a different kind of challenge. We later find out that the death of Renjun’s teenage daughter in a car accident is part of his motivation, and this adds to a great deal of emotion that simmers throughout the film, which finally spills over when the team later achieves the impossible. Score a goal, that is. A first ever win soon follows. Air punches and tears at the cinema the first time I saw the film, sports fan and phobic alike.

Rongen starts out as a stern, professional presence but soon softens, embracing the island’s devout, accepting, and loyal culture. Everyone has a role to play, whether it’s unearthed addition to the squad Rolston Masanayi, who qualified to play through his paternal grandfather, or striker Ramin Ott, forever mistaken for a Mexican at his military base.

Despite Rongen suggesting early on that trans player Jaiyah Saelua was unlikely to feature in the qualifiers, Saelua went on to become the first trans player ever to play in a World Cup qualifying match, making the most crucial tackles and crucial blocks on film.

As a fa’afafine, the third Samoan gender, Gaia is not only supported and accepted by her teammates, but is openly celebrated as part of the broader masculinity demonstrated in a film that struck me as inspiring. Get a guy who performs a traditional Samoan war dance but also isn’t afraid to cry in public and protect the puppets, on and off the field.

It goes without saying that American Samoa never made it to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup, but it did manage to climb 18 places in the FIFA rankings to 186th, earning a 100% certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes along the way (the less said about Taika Waititi’s remake, the better). As far as underdog stories go, you’d be hard pressed to write a better story from scratch, let alone explore such an iconic cast.