Next Goal Wins

In the midst of a desolate landscape, American Samoa's national football team stands as a monument to futility. A decade ago, they suffered the ignominy of a 31-0 thrashing at the hands of Australia, an embarrassment that still festers like an open wound today. The island nation remains mired in the depths of international football, having mustered only two paltry goals over the course of 17 years. Their record is as bleak as their prospects: every competitive game they've played has ended in defeat.

Against this backdrop of unrelenting failure, the team confronts the daunting task of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. It's a challenge that would test the mettle of even the most seasoned coach, and yet American Samoa somehow finds itself with Thomas Rongen, a maverick Dutch tactician who has previously coached alongside football legends George Best and Johann Cruyff.

Rongen, fresh from his stint with the mighty U.S. Soccer Federation, is unprepared for the existential crisis that awaits him on the island. In his own words, the standard of football he encounters is by far the lowest he's ever seen - a squad so lacking in athleticism that only half of its members are physically capable of completing a full game.

Among this ragtag bunch is an emotionally scarred goalkeeper who still bears the psychological wounds of conceding 31 goals against Australia a decade earlier. There's also a fafafine, a member of Samoa's third gender, who lives her life as a woman 24/7. And to compound matters further, the team's best player has been shipped off 6,000 miles away by the US military.

With the qualification campaign looming large on the horizon, Rongen has just one month to perform a miracle of transformation - to take this collection of misfits and turn them into a cohesive unit capable of winning games. Along the way, he may just discover a little something about himself, too.