American Samoa national football team
The American Samoa national football team (Au soka Amerika Sāmoa) represents American Samoa in men's international association football and is controlled by the Football Federation American Samoa, the governing body of the sport in the territory. American Samoa's home ground is the Pago Park Soccer Stadium in Pago Pago and their head coach is Tunoa Lui. 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 defeat of Wallis and 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. American Samoa registered their first FIFA-recognized international during the 1998 Polynesia Cup in Rarotonga, Cook Islands when they lost 3–0 to Tonga on September 2. 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.
