Next Goal Wins

Next Goal Wins follows Thomas Rongen, a Dutch-American soccer coach who takes on the job of leading the American Samoa national team. The side is known for losing heavily and often, including one of the most one-sided defeats in the history of international football, and has gone years without a win. With a World Cup qualifying campaign ahead and only a short stretch of time to prepare, Rongen tries to rebuild a squad of part-time players into something competitive, a task that requires changing how the team trains and how it is organised.

Taika Waititi directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Iain Morris. It sits late in his filmography, after Jojo Rabbit and Thor: Love and Thunder and before A Holiday Short: Best Christmas Ever and Klara and the Sun. Michael Fassbender plays Rongen, with Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, David Fane, Rachel House and Beulah Koale among the cast. The production was a modest one, made for about 14 million US dollars, and its worldwide take of roughly 18 million dollars was a small return on that outlay.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.5 from around 2,900 votes, while on TMDB it has a 6.4 from roughly 613 votes, placing it in middling territory with audiences on both.