Director Taika Waititi’s film, Next Goal Wins, is predicated on the 2011 American Samoa males’s soccer group, as they tried to make it to the FIFA World Cup following a humiliating 31-0 loss to Australia. Drawing inspiration from Mike Brett and Steve Jamison’s same-titled documentary from 2014, it takes nice pleasure in defying conventional sports activities motion pictures.

Following ten years of harm and no growth, the group hires the temperamental Dutch-American Thomas Rongen (performed by Michael Fassbender) as coach. Despite being unqualified for the job, he rises to the event and helps salvage the American Samoan honor with a single aim.

Who is Thomas Rongen?

Thomas Rongen is a Dutch-American soccer coach, who, for many of his life, performed and coached within the US. In December 2016, he was appointed because the Chief Scout of the US males’s nationwide soccer group.

In 1996, Rongen led the Tampa Bay Mutiny to the best regular-season report and gained the MLS Coach of the Year award. In 2014 his stint as a coach guiding the American Samoa nationwide group was lined in a documentary.

In 2023, as soon as once more, Taika Waiti made a comedy-drama film with the identical identify, Next Goal Wins wherein he solid Michael Fassbender as Thomas Rongen. In 2014, what Rongen took on was an not possible job however what occurred modified his life fully.

What is the Next Goal Wins documentary about?

In the 2014 documentary, Next Goal Wins, the American Samoa nationwide group is proven attempting to salvage their honor after a humiliating 31-0 loss to Australia in an Oceania qualifier for the 2002 World Cup.

When it is time to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the native federation has misplaced all hope. In 2009, a storm hit the world and destroyed their playgrounds, killing dozens of individuals. Since there is not any scope for his or her job, the youthful gamers are leaving for US faculties or the US army.

Despite being tainted because the group with a variety of unhealthy luck, they nonetheless have one card to play. They ask the US Soccer Federation to assist them discover a coach and the identify that comes up is that of Thomas Rongen who is thought to have performed for the US under-20 group and a number of other skilled groups within the US.

He grew up enjoying in Amsterdam, the place soccer was as sacred as a faith.

Thomas Rongen begins teaching the gamers, attempting to make them stronger each mentally and bodily. He works arduous on their expertise and recreation data, and will get leads to a really brief interval.

In return, this hardened skilled coach too will get to be taught a factor or two from the group.

Is Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins primarily based on a real story?

Next Goal Wins, by Taika Waititi, is predicated on a real story. It’s concerning the American Samoan soccer group’s combat to regain their honor after struggling a 31-0 loss to Australia in 2001. The group was thought-about the worst on the planet, and coach Thomas Rongen was taken on board to coach the underdogs for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

Waiti admitted to having made a number of adjustments in response to the demand of the script to make it appear like good fiction. Just earlier than the Next Goal Wins premiere on the Toronto International Film Festival, Waititi mentioned:

“I saw the documentary a few years ago, and I thought it was a story I had to tell and twist it… Otherwise, you might as well watch the documentary.”

Waititi meant a humorous, heat story about part of the Pacific for his film Next Goal Wins so he introduced again a number of likeable characters along with a comic book twist.