Early history In 1983,
American Samoa entered a football team in the
South Pacific Games for the first time. The territory's official first match took place in
Apia,
Western Samoa on August 20, 1983, and ended in a 3–1 defeat to
Western Samoa. Two days later, the team recorded their first win with a 3–0 victory against
Wallis & Futuna however, they were eliminated from the competition at the group stage following a 3–2 loss to
Tonga on August 24. The following year, the
American Samoa Football Association (ASFA) – now known as Football Federation American Samoa (FFAS) – was founded and took over responsibility for organizing the territory's national team. After competing in the
1987 South Pacific Games and the
1994 Polynesia Cup, ASFA became full members of the
Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) and the
Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) allowing them to compete in the
FIFA World Cup qualifiers for the first time.
World record for the worst loss in international matches During their
first qualifying campaign for the
2002 FIFA World Cup in April 2001, American Samoa was involved in a match which set the record for the largest margin of victory in international football when they
lost 31–0 to
Australia. The outcome of the match led to debates about the format of qualification tournaments, with the Australian manager
Frank Farina and striker
Archie Thompson – who scored 13 times in the match – feeling that preliminary rounds should be introduced to avoid such unbalanced matches, views shared by the international footballing body
FIFA. It eventually led to the introduction of a preliminary round in the
Oceanian zone qualification for the
2006 FIFA World Cup.
Stagnation Since joining FIFA, the team has been regarded as one of the world's weakest teams and were, until November 2011, the joint-lowest ranked national team in the
FIFA World ranking. On November 23, 2011, American Samoa recorded their second and first FIFA-recognized win when they defeated
Tonga 2–1 in the
first round of qualifiers for the
2014 FIFA World Cup. It was also the team's 1st victory after 38 consecutive defeats. The team's efforts to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup were chronicled in a 2014 British documentary,
Next Goal Wins, directed by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison. In October 2015, the territory achieved its highest position in the FIFA World Rankings when they reached 164th following back-to-back wins against
Tonga and the
Cook Islands in
qualifying for the
2018 FIFA World Cup. After playing in the
2019 Pacific Games, the team went over four years without playing an international match. This hiatus was caused in part by the
COVID-19 pandemic which forced the cancellation of the
2020 OFC Nations Cup and led the team to withdraw from
2022 FIFA World Cup qualification. American Samoa was removed from the
FIFA World Rankings in July 2023, due to going 5 years without playing an official match. American Samoa finally competed again at the
2023 Pacific Games.
Player pool American Samoa has struggled in part because of its small player pool. The territory has a small population, and many potential players move away for education or work or choose to play other sports such as
baseball. Another limiting factor is that international competition regulations often require that players hold the nationality of the country that they represent, which in the case of American Samoa is
United States nationality. Although people born in American Samoa are
United States nationals, foreign nationals who immigrate to American Samoa, who comprise about a third of its population, are ineligible to apply for United States nationality. An option for the team would be to recruit players from the United States, as other teams of Pacific territories have done with their parent countries, such as
Tahiti drawing players from
Metropolitan France. ==Team image==