Movies with a heart rarely win big at the box office. Next Goal Wins did not change that pattern, which is precisely why I am writing about it. The sports dramedy tells the largely forgotten (or perhaps never even popular) story of the most unsuccessful football team in the history of football. The movie tells of the struggles of the American Samoan team and their newly appointed Dutch-American coach with anger issues, with director and co-screenwriter Taika Waitit taking this underdog story to another level.

The film begins in 2011, when the American Samoan national team was still struggling to recover from the Oceania qualifiers in 2001 when they lost 31–0 to Australia. In fact, they were still struggling to score a goal at all: at matches, during training, for some even on video games. The head of the football league Tavita Taumua decided that it is time for more drastic changes and so he hired a new (international) coach.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, coach Thomas Rongen was still struggling to save his career from the embarrassment of his frequent bursts of anger on the pitch. He ends up being sent by the American Soccer Federation to American Samoa to help the local team and, in their words, to help himself and his reputation recover.

The movie is set-up for a White Savior story. And (spoiler alert), considering the eventual win of the American Samoa national team under the helm of Rongen, it could be seen as such. However, in Next Goal Wins this seems true only on the surface. In actuality, the film is about what makes a community. For the American Samoans, as presented by Waititi, that is religion; that is their multiple jobs; that is following the 20mph speed limit; that is the next long-awaited, coveted, dreamt of goal. Not a winning goal. Just a score. That will be enough for the locals.

These goals are hardly enough for Rongen in the beginning of the film. A painfully American character, he sees his new appointment as punishment, even exile, being hellbent on not making it work. Tavita and his wife manage to lure him into carefully crafted fake-indigenous spirituality that guides Rongen back to the pitch to train the national team. And what a team he meets! No Western discipline, no soccer league rules, no reputations at stake: only a group of people who like to play a game, sometimes professionally. Rongen’s true colors seep through when he meets Jaiyah, the fa’afafine (a Samoan third gender identity) player, or during the designated prayer time when all activity around the country halts, causing his desperation to get work done and return home turn into disrespect and sometimes genuine malice. The patience and, most importantly, the care of the locals for Rongen as a new member of their community finally heal him of his prejudice, anger and apathy (not of his American-style pep talk though, for which he is still somehow forgiven).

Next Goal Wins is a winning comedy not because of ingenious writing or directing and least of all because of novel filming or production. The genuine attempt at making an underdog film really be about the strength it takes to be in such a position, to be actively opposing the systems that put you in it in the first place, and to choose to believe in your community even after a historic defeat is why this movie is incredible.