Rongen had only taken the job as a way of exorcising a family tragedy: the loss of his 18-year-old daughter in a car crash. Once on the island, he forms an unlikely bond with Saelua. More than that, he sees something in her that all American Samoa's previous coaches had missed. Saelua had never even started a match before Rongen's arrival, but by the end of the film, she has become the defensive rock on which the team is built.