American Samoa

American Samoa Home 2015

A very standard Nike kit. 2 blue stripes on a white background with a stitched logo and Nike tick. That’s about it, though the back is more of a breathable mesh which is at least a little different. However, you can’t help but like it, partly because it is an American Samoa shirt and partly because where are you going to get an alternative from? These replica shirts came about due to the film “Next Goal Wins” about them achieving their first victory so you can overlook any complaints about the colour scheme being a little unusual and go and watch the film because it is fantastic. Unsure about the name on the back though, no-one of that name has ever played for the team, must’ve been the original owner?

American Samoa wore this design in qualification for the 2016 OFC Nations Cup, the very first stage of 2018 World Cup Qualification. It proved to be a fairly successful campaign, with a narrow loss to neighbours Samoa followed up by victories over Tonga and the Cook Islands. They went out on goal difference, Samoa being on +3 and American Samoa on +2 (with the Cook Islands just below on +2 but with 2 less goals scored, wow that was close, also poor Tonga).

Is this fairly typical? We don’t have much data for comparison with the new format only coming into play for the 2012 OFC Nations Cup/2014 World Cup Qualification. Prior to that, in 3 campaigns and 12 games, American Samoa lost all 12, scoring 2 and conceding 129, including in that infamous 31-0. Everyone laughed at that and totally failed to take into account that Australia denied all but Nicky Salapu (the goalkeeper) entry to the country so they had to use their third/fourth team (either no passport or exams for all above them). However, 2014 qualification led to their first victory, a crucial draw and an agonising late loss to Samoa to grant Samoa the play-off spot (Samoa won 1-0, breaking from Am Sam hitting the frame of the goal).

Their women’s side has 2 draws ever, both in the Pacific Games. However, they haven’t played often, with their first appearances in the late 90’s but then a significant hiatus. Their latest qualification attempt was considerably better but was still 3 losses, albeit with only 5 goals conceded. Youth football has also not been kind, with wins solely coming from the U-17 men’s side (when they’ve hosted their qualification round) and their U20 women’s side. Otherwise there’s been a smattering of draws and a lot of heavy losses.

Beach Soccer has apparently not caught on, with no appearances but they have debuted at Futsal in 2019. They lost all 3 group stage games (3 goals scored, 28 conceded) before beign dispatched 6-2 by Fiji in placement games. They finished 7^th of 8 teams by a 3-0 walkover as Tonga had gone home. A shame, it would’ve been an interesting game.

Currently World Cup Qualifying hasn’t started for American Samoa, though if the preliminary round stays in, the squad is confident of finally beating their neighbours to the group stage spot.