American Samoa and More Upsets from Bottom-Ranked International Football Teams

It's in the DNA of the sports fan to love the underdog. It's why movies like Rocky and Rudy exist, to feed that ever-present part of our brain that makes us want to get up and cheer when it looks like the unlikely heroes will achieve their dreams after all. The footballing world gave us a fantastic underdog story over the weekend in the victory of the American Samoa national football team.

To give you some background (you know, for the maybe five of you who missed this one over the weekend), the American Samoa national team is quite literally the worst national team in football. Or one of them, anyway. They have the lowest ranking of all the FIFA nations, tied for 204th with Andorra, Montserrat, Samoa and San Marino. 

Their 2-1 victory over Tonga in the first round of Oceania's World Cup qualifying competition was their first victory in 17 years and 30 matches, the most devastating defeat coming in 2001, a 31-0 routing at the hands of Australia's Socceroos and the largest defeat ever recorded in footballing history. So naturally, the win felt pretty good. 

One aspect of the American Samoa team which some football fans found particularly captivating was the introduction and impressive performance of centre-back Johnny Saelua, effectively the world's first transgender international footballer.

Saelua is what is known in the Samoan culture as a fa'afafine, a biologically male person raised as a woman and considered to be a distinct third gender. With the footballing world still frequently ingrained in its age-old prejudices, the presence of someone like Saelua in the game is a reminder that what matters most is whether or not someone can and wants to play football. 

American Samoa were vanquished soon after with a defeat from fellow bottom-ranked rivals Samoa, eliminating them from the 2014 World Cup qualifiers. But, in honor of their big win, let's salute American Samoa with some other great recent international victories from the bottom of the FIFA table. 

1. Andorra 1-0 FYROM, 2006 World Cup Qualifiers

Despite being sandwiched between two of the biggest footballing nations in the world, Spain and France, the tiny Catalán-speaking nation has a less-than-favorable record in international competition with only three victories, well, ever. In their past three Euro tournament qualifying campaigns, they have lost every single one of their matches. 

But in Andorra's 2006 World Cup qualifying campaign, things fared a little bit better. At their first home match, playing to a crowd of only 200 in Andorra la Vella, midfielder Marc Bernaus scored a second-half goal to bring the squad a 1-0 victory over Macedonia.

Their opponents' head coach, Dragan Kanatlarovski, was so embarrassed by the upset that he resigned soon after.

2. San Marino 1-0 Liechtenstein, 2004

This isn't exactly a huge upset, as neither team exactly has a stellar reputation, but considering Liechtenstein has something like 70 points on San Marino in the FIFA rankings right now and an overall better record (by one win, but you know), you could call it an upset.

In front of a crowd of 700 in San Marino, itinerant striker Andy Selva scored the goal to give the Sanmarinese their only international win ever.

3. The "Other Final," 2002

This is a football documentary worth checking out if you haven't. On June 30th, 2002, the same day as the 2002 World Cup finals in Japan, a team of filmmakers staged an international friendly between the two lowest-ranked teams at the time, the kingdom of Bhutan and the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

Bhutan won the match 4-0, spurred by a hat trick from Wangay Dorji, but the film was also an interesting look at the way football brought two very different cultures together.