Former United States national U-20 team coach Thomas Rongen oversaw American Samoa’s groundbreaking 2-1 win over Tonga on the first day of the OFC Stage 1 Qualifiers for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Apia, Samoa, despite having only three weeks to work with his new charges.
“It is not a long time to put a team together but long enough to make a change, which I think we’ve been able to do,” he says. “I hope that we can now improve our standing in the FIFA rankings and get into the hundreds. We are 204 at the moment and this win will have helped.”
The Dutchman knew little about football in the Pacific region prior to his appointment and admits he was not even sure exactly where American Samoa was.
“I live in Florida and own some property in the Bahamas so I’m an island kind of guy,” he says. “I looked at a map and said to my wife, ‘Hey, it’s an island, do you want to do it?’ She said, ‘Let’s go’, so we headed down.”
American Samoa is not a common stop on the respective journeys of the world’s top coaches and Rongen’s arrival came about only after a chat between Football Federation American Samoa President Iuli Alex Godinet and his U.S. Soccer counterpart Sunil K. Gulati.
“The presidents met at FIFA headquarters in Zurich and talked about the possibility of someone coming out here. That’s how it all started,” Rongen explains.
“U.S. Soccer reached out to me and asked if I had any interest. I’m Dutch and, like most Dutch people, I love to travel. I thought it was such a unique opportunity that I couldn’t turn it down. I’ve been all over the world but never to this part.
“And the challenge of becoming head coach of a senior national team and taking them into a serious competition, which World Cup qualifying obviously is, was another aspect that attracted me as it was something that was missing on my resume. So it was driven by professional instincts, personal instincts and some form of adventure, which I always enjoy.”
As well as coaching the US U-20 side, Rongen has had spells at the helm of several MLS clubs and is therefore used to working with a higher standard of player that he now finds himself in charge of. But, rather than becoming frustrated by the shortcomings of his new squad, he says the drop in ability has been like a breath of fresh air.
“It’s actually been very refreshing because it’s such a pure form of football,” the 55-year-old says.
“It’s amateur football at its best. The game at the highest level can be very cynical but this is just about 23 guys making sacrifices. They’re not getting anything to be here and some are spending time away from their jobs and are losing money because of that. Some of them were coming in at 4.30am to work out, and then they would go to school or work, before coming back and training again.
“For me it has been very healthy because it has brought me back to my roots and what football was like when I grew up. I’ve been driven by wins and losses and have been fired in the past for not winning enough games. Fear of failure has been what’s driven me. This is more for the love of the game and has been a very good journey so far.”
That journey will get even better if American Samoa can build on the remarkable result against Tonga and post further positive outcomes against Cook Islands and Samoa. With Rongen’s sound knowledge guiding the players and team spirit understandably at an all-time high, it would take a brave man to bet against them doing so. They do say good things come in threes, after all.

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