Nicky Salapu: On the Record
Taika Waititi’s new film, Next Goal Wins, recalls international football’s heaviest defeat. And the goalkeeper who conceded 31 goals that day has a story to tell…
I manage to track down Nicky Salapu via his wife’s Facebook account. It’s a precarious strategy. Not only do I risk coming across as a little intrusive, but if someone is not on social media these days, it’s highly likely they don’t want to be found.
Type Salapu’s name in the search engine that specialises in its own dark art of intrusion, and you’ll soon discover why that might be the case. Salapu is over 40 now, but — online at least — he’s still best remembered for the events of one evening 20 years ago. As the goalkeeper for FIFA’s lowest-ranked team, he conceded 31 goals in a single match. Australia 31 American Samoa 0 remains a world record international defeat.
To my surprise, Salapu agrees to an interview. But when I finally dial in on Zoom, I’m apologising for being fifteen minutes late, having cocked up the time zone difference. He’s bleary-eyed and sat on his bed, having seemingly just woken up. As interviews go, it’s not a promising start.
So I proceed to do what every flustered interviewer does when wanting to get to the heart of a delicate topic. I avoid it. We talk about whether there is any snow there in Seattle (there isn’t), whether his 13-year-old son is a goalie like his dad (he’s a winger), and what he now does for a living (security firm technician). Finally, I grow a pair.
“Our theme for this issue is defiance,” I tell him. “Which means that, to talk about the ups, we must begin by talking about the downs.”
Salapu sighs.
Undeterred by spiel that sounded like a psychology student’s dorm-room poster, I continue. “Do you get frustrated having to continually talk about that game?”.
“To be honest, I get used to it,” he says, like a man resigned to his fate. I already feel a little guilty. But he goes on.
“But that gets me where I’m at right now. Without that happening, I wouldn’t be here, still playing and loving the sport. So, I don’t mind talking about everything. Football is my life. Except for my wife and my son, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s a blessing to play football.”
“I’m training really hard right now to try one more time for World Cup qualifying.”
That’s right. He’s still playing, and still representing American Samoa. And so one thing is already apparent. Nicky Salapu is certainly not in hiding.
The thing with statistical records is that context is always the first victim. The facts, as listed in Guinness’ famous tome, are that on April 11th, 2001, striker Archie Thompson scored 13 goals as Australia ran riot at Coffs Harbour International Stadium, north of Sydney.
Unfortunately for American Samoa, there’s no mention of FIFA’s decision, just days before the game, to allow only Samoans with a US passport permission to play. That this made Salapu the only senior player available, at just 20 years old, is also omitted. As too, is the fact that American Samoa’s reserves — their under-20s team — couldn’t stand in because they were all sitting exams.
And so, nowhere in that volume of records does it make clear that Australia’s chart-topping total was plundered past a team that included several 15-year-olds who’d never before played 90 minutes of football.
Salapu describes the desperation to put a team together at the last minute, after FIFA deemed their original squad — which he remembers featured Samoan footballers based in Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and neighbouring Western Samoa — as ineligible.
“We had to find anyone local that could kick a soccer ball. Or just anyone with an American passport, ‘you can join the team’. We trained with that team for one week. One week. Before going to Australia to play against all these professional players.”
“It didn’t work out that well,” he adds with a rueful chuckle.
Salapu speculates that the financial consequences of forfeiting the game left the American Samoan FA little choice but to turn up and take their medicine with a team of schoolboys, some of whom were picked simply because they played a sport. Any sport. It meant that boys with dreams of making it in professional basketball, rugby or American football, were all of a sudden thrust into the glare of a soccer World Cup qualifier. And the Aussies? They showed little mercy.
Australians have a reputation for being fierce and ruthless sporting competitors. Ask an English cricketer from the nineties about an Ashes tour, and you’re likely to get the bedevilled stare of a war vet. But this? This was different. This was a country of 23 million people against one of just 46,000. At the risk of ringing the cliché klaxon, this was quite literally men against boys.
Reaction around the world was a mixture of mockery and incredulity, and not all of it was directed at the shell-shocked Samoans. In Scotland, Rangers manager Dick Advocaat summed up the mood for many when he dropped returning Aussies Tony Vidmar and Craig Moore for their next game, furious that they’d flown across the world to take part in such a sporting farce.
For Salapu, the humiliation cut deep. “I felt like I failed my country, big time. I knew we were going to get smashed, but I wasn’t thinking that much. It was the hardest experience I ever dealt with. It was devastating.”
“I love sportsmanship. And when you’re that far ahead, maybe the coach will just say ‘relax a little bit’. If you have passion and love for football… that’s not football for me; when you’re running up scores that high.”
I ask Salapu if he’s still in touch with any of the other players from the game, intrigued to know what became of them. He says few ever played football again, either making a hasty return to their first-choice sport or — as their physiques suggest — giving it up altogether.
“I met some of them back on the island. And they’re big. Like, really big. I think Australia shot their dream down. They thought ‘If this is the way that we’re gonna suffer in sports, I don’t want to do it any more’.”
As the only genuine footballer in the team that night, Salapu has legitimate reason to believe it hurt him the most. Unlike his stand-in teammates, it wasn’t easy to turn his back on the game. Especially when, as remarkable as it sounds, he actually played well that night.
“The crazy thing is our goalkeeper kept the score down with a magnificent display,” said American Samoa manager Tony Langkilde after the game. Salapu assumed that this would be another of the forgotten truths, his promising display pushed aside in favour of cheap puns in tabloid headlines.
He admits that he “shut down for a little bit”, retreating to the sanctuary of the island. He coached the women’s national team and found satisfaction in being able to use his experience to help his country’s next generation of footballers. He sought inspiration from his role model, David Beckham, particularly in the way Beckham had emerged from national disgrace to captain his country. And then came a phone call with the offer of a trial at Palm Beach Soccer Club (now Gold Coast City FC).
Suddenly the country that had shattered his confidence was offering to rebuild it. “They called me the following month and said, ‘We need you to come back to play for our team’. I thought ‘Hey, you know what, I’m not so bad after all.’”
Salapu played in Australia for around six months, perhaps — as a glint in his eye suggests — enjoying the trappings of professional football a little too much. In a bid to avoid continually renewing his visa, he opted to move to the US in the hope of finding another team. He turned down a contract offer in Detroit to live near family in Seattle, where he fell in love and settled down. After some time turning out for local amateur teams, he assumed his top-level football career was over.
Until one day in 2011, when he received a phone call from a charismatic Dutchman by the name of Thomas Rongen. Rongen’s transatlantic twang hinted at his decades spent in the US. As a player, he’d lined up alongside Cruyff and Beckenbauer. As a boss, he was named coach of the year in the MLS’ inaugural season, and steered the USA under-20s team to two World Cup finals.
Now, for some reason, he’d offered to help out one of the country’s unincorporated territories. This cocksure, highly-experienced coach was therefore ringing Salapu to coax him out of international retirement for World Cup qualifying. There was only ever going to be one answer.
“Thomas brought his experience, attitude, and personality, and it gave us morale. He was a well-organised coach, the discipline was really high. He was tough when we were on the field. But off the field, he was the softest person you could ever talk to. So that was the best thing ever.”
Rongen also used his well-thumbed contacts book to recruit a couple of eligible Samoans from the US, and an intense three-week training programme was put in place.
When American Samoa lined up against Tonga on 23rd November 2011, they were a team that hadn’t won a single one of their 30 previous competitive games. Salapu, as the only player to survive the Australia game ten years earlier, was beyond desperate to avoid further humiliation. “With the 31–0, I felt like I was carrying that for a while. It was getting heavier and heavier.”
A rejuvenated Samoan side edged ahead just before half-time and dared to dream when they doubled their lead in the 74th minute. But when Tonga clawed one back with a close-range header in the 88th minute, the unfamiliar pressure of being in a winning position began to take its toll. Tonga, sensing their opponents’ nerves, launched attack after attack.
In the dying seconds of the game, Tonga’s centre-forward was put through on goal and set to strike, just as a bulldozing Salapu sprinted from his line to dive at his feet and intercept. The ball was cleared, and the referee blew for full-time.
“After that whistle blew, it was the greatest feeling ever,” says Salapu, now sat up and beaming, before admitting that he shed tears in the moments that followed.
“I wanted to prove everyone wrong, that American Samoa can play football too. We don’t just show up. We can beat you too. That was important for me to prove.”
“I always dreamed there’d be one day when the sun was shining. I just kept searching for that sunshine.”
American Samoa drew their next game, against Cook Islands, meaning a win in the derby against Western Samoa would see them progress to the second qualifying round. With the score at 0–0, American Samoa struck the post in the dying minutes. Western Samoa immediately countered, and scored a cruel last-minute winner past Salapu, who’d been only minutes away from his first clean sheet. For all the heartbreak, there was pride. And for Salapu, a new target.
“My dream now is to get to the second round, before I hang up these boots. I don’t want to quit now.” And if not him, he hopes his son will take up the challenge. “I’m hoping that he’s going to become an American Samoa national player. So hopefully one day he’s going to take me through to that second round!”
Their chances are better than they ever have been. In recent years they have climbed as high as 164th in FIFA’s world rankings. Given that there are 210 FIFA nations, it represents a marked improvement.
Meanwhile, Next Goal Wins, a comedy from acclaimed Kiwi director Taika Waititi, is due for a November 2023 release and is based on American Samoa’s footballing exploits. Starring Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss, and Rhys Darby, it’s sure to thrust Salapu’s name back into the mainstream.
Only this time, he’ll be ready. He volunteered to be the body double and stuntman for the actor playing Salapu. It was an offer that was politely declined. He’s not too upset, “It’s OK. I’m not a movie star. I’m just a football player. But it’s very exciting.”
Australia’s national team may have since moved from Oceania to Asia qualifying (after realising the futility of thumping small island nations), but Salapu hopes any renewed interest may open the doors to a charity rematch. Only this time, he wants his team to be at full strength.
Just before we end the call, he’s laughing as he reveals some of the best trash-talking he still receives on the football pitch. Because of the ups of 2011, he can now smile at the downs of 2001. Which prompts my final question. If he had his time again, would he still play in that game at Coffs Harbour?
“I’m still gonna play. I know I’m going to lose, but I’ll come with my national team and I’ll stand tall and I’ll stand strong, trying to protect those goalposts. If I could do it all over again, I would.”
Originally published in issue 10 of NPLH Magazine
