Richard Crouse

Charming but slight, Taika Waititi’s “Next Goal Wins” is an inspirational, underdog sports movie that falls just short of a win.

Michael Fassbender plays real-life football coach Thomas Rongen, a hothead whose failure to push the Under-20 United States men’s national team to the World Cup cost him a prime gig with the league. At loose ends, with a broken marriage and no prospects, he takes a last-chance job with the failing American Samoa soccer team. “This guy has been fired from his last three jobs because he can’t control himself,” says player Daru (Beulah Koale).

How bad are they? “We haven’t scored one goal in the history of our country trying to have a soccer team,” explains Tavita (Oscar Kightley), head of the Football Federation of American Samoa. “All I want is just one goal. One goal.”

It’s a modest ambition, but this is a team who once gave up 31 goals in a match against Australia. The question is, Can a man who values winning above all else work with a team of such modest ambitions? “I can honestly say it’s the worst bunch of players I’ve ever come across,” says Rongen.

Although based on a true story, “Next Goal Wins” leans into every cliché in the sports movie playbook. Add to that a boatload of fish out of water tropes, a drunken, angry coach and one big game, and you have a movie that, despite the American Samoa setting, feels very familiar.

It’s “Ted Lasso” Lite by way of the “Bad News Bears,” but isn’t without its humble charms. The script is stuffed to bursting with one-liners and sight gags, delivered by an able and willing cast. The scene stealer here is Kightley, the eternally optimistic federation leader. He’s a ton of fun and is a nice counterbalance to Fassbender’s dour performance.

The film’s beating heart is Jaiyah Saelua (Kaimana), the first openly non-binary and trans woman in soccer history to compete in a World Cup game. Known as faʻafafine, a third gender accepted in traditional Samoan culture, Saelua’s addition to the story—which is based on the team’s true history—modernizes the well-worn inspirational sports flick with a nod to identity and acceptance.

“Next Goal Wins” is a crowd pleaser with some laughs, but aside from some timely, sly social commentary on white saviour tropes and inclusion, is as formulaic as sports movies get.