On April 11, 2001, the nation of Australia defeated American Samoa in a soccer match,331-0. Thirty-one to Nil. It was the largest margin of victory in international football history. The game counted towards World Cup qualification, which is why the Aussies ran up the score. Heck, they beat Tonga 22-0 earlier in the week. This was just another bad day of practice.
In the wake of the greatest embarrassment in the history of international football, Next Goal Wins tells us that American Somoa has given up the goal of competing -much less winning- and set their sights on a lesser hurdle: it simply wants to score a goal. One goal. That’s it. The tiny United States-owned island somewhere in the middle of Oceania just wanted to score once. This is as modest as goals get.
Well, the population of American Samoa is under 50k. Seriously. These are the kinds of goals you have when you live on an island paradise with a population under 50k. I think I could best that population total, quite seriously, by drawing a two-mile radius around me at this exact moment. Could I find talent enough in that 4π square mile radius to best the Socceroos? No. But could I find a group that could hold them to under 30? Maybe.
Dutch-American Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender) was between jobs. Next Goal Wins plays out a scene in which Rongen is fired in front of an American national soccer committee and quickly marches through the five stages of grief before accepting the dead-end job of coaching American Samoa. He’s fired by his boss (Will Arnett) and the woman his boss is seeing (Elisabeth Moss), who just happens to be Thomas’ estranged wife.
Ouch.
And so far I’ve only listed white people, which is a bit of an embarrassment as American Samoa is an island of color. Is there white saviorism in this movie? So much so, the movie even says exactly as much. Thomas arrives on the tropical pitch and discovers the problem immediately: the team has no talent and seems not to know even the most basic gamesmanship. This is where someone experienced with sports should have taken over. I love writer/director Taiki Waititi, but he doesn’t know anything about sports, and it shows.
Taika Waititi put together a Bad News Bears kind of movie, a movie where the outsider meets a mixed donuts box of nothings and molds them into a team capable of victory. Here’s the thing- while it’s fun to see mixed donuts assemble, international soccer teams -even bad ones- aren’t mixed donuts affairs. When the squad is playing for national pride, one hopes that they at le
ast know the rules to the game they’re playing, no? We are introduced to a group that almost literally seems not to understand the object of the game they play. Ok, that’s funny, but to a point.
Capturing the most attention on the team is Jaiyah Saelua (Kaimana), a trans woman currently undergoing hormone therapy. At the moment, she still qualifies for the men’s team. Kudos for the LGBTQ+ inclusion, Mr. Waititi. Same to you, American Samoa. The relationship between Thomas and Jaiyah becomes the most important in his coaching stint.
The biggest problem with Next Goal Wins is that it feels it was made by somebody who doesn’t really understand sport. There’s a big difference between: “these guys look like players, but can’t really play” and “the team you’ve assembled on screen would lose to an average JV high school squad. Seriously.” The result is we the audience learn more about American Samoa than we do about soccer. I couldn’t tell any single thing Thomas Rongen did to turn a team capable of losing by thirty goals into a team capable of semi-competitive international soccer … but I guarantee in real life, there was a lot there. Hence, this is a feel-good story, but doesn’t really ring true despite the obvious fact that it is taken straight out of 21st century sports history. This is a mildly fun watch, but aside from the trans player on the team, there isn’t a single takeaway from this film you won’t have found better in a genuine sports film.
A soccer coach whose career seemed done
Got shipped to the Pacific Ocean
Though he had a bad rap
His task was a snap
Just keep the margin under thirty-one
Rated PG-13, 103 Minutes
Director: Taika Waititi
Writer: Taika Waititi, Iain Morris
Genre: Sports for people who don’t like sports
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Natives of American Samoa
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Tongans
