Samoa’s Soccer Team Has A World Cup Dream

Like many children of Samoan heritage, Faitalia Hamilton-Pama’s first sporting instinct was rugby.

“I wanted to play rugby league but we went to my first game and I was a bit shy and didn’t want to get out of the car and then my mom saw the boys that we were meant to be playing.

“She was like ‘nah, you’re not playing rugby league I’m gonna put you in a safer sport,’” Hamilton-Pama, the captain of the Samoa men’s soccer team, tells me.

When it comes to rugby, Samoa punches well above its weight. The Polynesian Island nation has a population of about 200,000 (the same as Salt Lake City) but rugby union teams ranked 14th (men) and 18th (women) in the world. In rugby league, the less-widely played code, Samoa’s men’s team has reached the final of the Rugby League World Cup this Saturday, November 19.

The soccer World Cup begins the following day. Samoa has never come close to reaching the World Cup finals. This year, though, Hamilton-Pama and his international teammates will be watching with more hope than ever that they might one day share soccer’s biggest stage. There is an ambitious plan to put soccer on the map of this rugby-mad nation.

After unsuccessful campaigns, a global talent search

Mention “soccer” and “Samoa” and some will recall Australia’s record-breaking, 31-0 defeat of American Samoa in 2001. Samoa, American Samoa’s bigger neighbor to the west in the south-central Pacific Ocean, has never lost by that margin. Though it has lost by plenty before.

Samoa plays in the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), the weakest of FIFA’s six confederations. Not only has Samoa never reached a World Cup finals at any age group for men or women, the senior sides have also never been to the third stage of OFC qualifying. In a sea of small fish, it is one of the smallest.

About two years ago, however, the Samoa Football Federation initiated a plan to improve performance. New managers were appointed for the men’s and women’s national teams and technical staff with international experience were hired.

Part of the Federation’s thinking was an unlikely shot at the 2026 World Cup, to be hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico. From 2026, the final tournament expands from 32 to 48 teams, handing, for the first time, a direct qualifying place to the winners of OFC qualifying.

New Zealand, the strongest team in OFC since Australia moved to the Asia confederation in 2006, will be expected to take that spot. But the new format also grants a play-off place to the OFC team finishing second in the group.

Buoyed by this unlikely opportunity, Samoa’s Federation began a global recruitment drive for eligible players.

“The world is, especially through Covid times, a much more connected place. So finding players that have heritage from their born country is much easier than it was years ago,” Alastair McLae, Samoa’s head of recruitment & scouting, tells me.

“On my first day on the project, we didn’t even have a database of our existing players. Now we have 200 Samoans around the world that we’ve spotted and have almost signed up to the federation.”

When McLae and his team joined the Federation, Samoan teams had “not kicked a ball for three years”, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a lack of opportunities for competitive matches. An early challenge was convincing potential players the approach from the Samoan Football Federation wasn’t a prank.

The scouting team built a network of Samoan diaspora communities around the world and partnerships with community, educational and charitable organisations. Several players have been discovered through word of mouth.

Male and female players have been found in the academies of English Premier League and Spanish La Liga clubs, the Australian A-League and the United States. McLae says 95% are eligible to represent Samoa through the heritage of a grandparent. Most players are amateurs or semi-professionals, which is the case for all OFC teams except New Zealand.

About 40 Samoan passports have been processed for new players, with 75% of the senior women’s squad for the 2022 OFC Nations Cup found by scouts in the past two years. For the men’s Under-20 World Cup qualifiers, 18 of the 26-strong squad were scouted from overseas clubs. The team reached the quarter-finals of OFC qualifying for the first time.

Hamilton-Pama, 29, was born in New Zealand and qualifies for Samoa through his mother. He is an apprentice plumber and center-back for Auckland-based Western Springs and came to the attention of Samoa’s national team after playing against them in a friendly match.

“Obviously I knew Samoa had a football set up but it wasn’t something I had on my radar,” Hamilton-Pama, who made his debut in 2015, says.

“I spoke to my coach and my mom and she said: ‘go for it. It’s an opportunity, it’s a blessing to be able to represent your country whether it’s New Zealand or Samoa.’”

Samoa’s scouts do not only search for tactical and technical ability. They also seek those with the personality traits to fit within the culture of the national team and its domestic-based players.

“Do they align with the disciplines of a Samoan footballer? Are they passionate? Do they care for others? Are they shaking hands at the end of the game? We’re looking for these other mental elements of a player. If you’re on international duty, you’re representing your country,” McLae says.

“We try and get more of the younger players so that we can build them up on that journey rather than finding a 30-year-old, established professional player who doesn’t know anything about Samoa. If we find the 16, 17, 18, 19, 20-year-olds, they’ve got much more of a chance to bring up that Samoan culture and have a long career in the Samoa international scene.”

Russ Gurr, Samoa’s head of international scouting, is a former soccer video analyst. He is based in Edinburgh, Scotland, while McLae is in Auckland, New Zealand. Their combined “24-hour coverage of the world” has proved useful in trying to find players.

Gurr says they want a “sustainable” scouting approach. They don’t only want superstars now, but young talents for the future.

“If you’re looking at a World Cup cycle, you want to get to a point where you’re finding a team, a group of players, that are almost aspirational for that younger audience. So then you can start having players looking up to them and wanting to play football for Samoa at a younger age,” he says.

An unlikely route to the World Cup

The World Cup qualifying campaign for 2026 is a rare chance for the Pacific Islands’s teams to step into the international spotlight. The most high-profile appearance previously was Tahiti at the 2013 Confederations Cup, where the team conceded 24 goals and scored once in three matches.

Within OFC qualifying, McLae points out that Samoa is not the only country making investments in infrastructure and scouting. Teams like Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Fiji will be strong challengers.

However, there is “heightened confidence” Samoa can finish in the play-off place.

“If you keep that core group together, and it’s all about contact time, then I think we’ll have a really good run and push for that second spot,” he says.

Hamilton-Pama has seen the changes in Samoan soccer lay “a foundation and a blueprint for us to be contenders”.

“There’s a big difference in direction and professionalism and what we want to achieve, not just as individuals, but as a group,” he says.

“It won’t be easy. But from the small steps that we have made, I feel like we can be that dark horse and definitely cause a few upsets (in 2026 World Cup qualifying). For that next campaign, whether we secure that second spot or get out of the group stage or whatever, I feel like we have an opportunity to grow football in the islands.

“To give kids, not just in the islands but of Samoan descent, a different avenue to pursue. It’s not only rugby (union) or rugby league – football is an option.”

If Samoa finishes second, it will enter an intercontinental play-off tournament of six teams, to decide the final two World Cup 2026 spots. Whichever OFC team reaches the play-off will be a clear underdog.

But while Samoa at a World Cup finals is still improbable, it no longer feels impossible. The big dream from the small islands is at least a little closer.