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Take a football team that has never won a match, has scored just two goals in 17 years, and become a global laughing stock for its world record 31-0 defeat to Australia .

Factor in overweight players incapable of lasting 90 minutes, a practice pitch ruined by a tsunami, and local rules that forbid training on Sunday.

There’s another complication: the star defender was born a boy, Jonathan, but now lives as Jaiyah Saelua, a transgender woman, who insists on playing in full make-up.

This was the challenge football chiefs in American Samoa pitched to prospective coaches when they appealed for help to qualify for this summer’s World Cup in Brazil.

The team’s serial under-achievement would have sent most managers running.

Not maverick Dutch coach Thomas Rongen.

Three years ago he accepted the challenge of turning around the fortunes of the perpetual losers.

A decade after the most humiliating drubbing in international football history – that defeat against the Aussies – the time had come for the tiny Pacific island to win a game.

(Image: Getty / FA)

Or at least score another goal.

Now the story of American Samoa’s attempt to climb from the foot of the FIFA world rankings is the subject of new documentary film Next Goal Wins.

Made by two British directors, who filmed the team in 2011, it is an insight into the progress of players in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

In an era of Premier League players demanding exorbitant salaries, American Samoa’s amateurs prove an inspiration.

As gravel-voiced Thomas, 57, says shortly after his arrival in the capital, Pago Pago: “These guys actually play because they love the game.

"They get zero, nothing. It’s pretty amazing.”

This week Thomas is in Britain with Jaiyah, 25, in the run-up to the nationwide release of Next Goal Wins.

Thomas tells me that before flying to American Samoa with his wife from their home in Florida, his hosts said they only had two practice balls on the island.

That’s when Thomas, assistant coach for the US World Cup team in 1998, realised the scale of the challenge he was about to undertake.

And once he saw the team in action he realised this was “by far the lowest standard” of football he had seen.

It was a massive drop-off since his time in the 70s and 80s playing professionally in the US alongside the likes of George Best.

“I thought it was a chance to coach a team for the World Cup qualifiers, regardless of the level,” Thomas explains.

“I was also attracted by the story of the 31-0 defeat against Australia.”

He adds: “For me to go to an island that is very religious was initially a professional problem. They pray three times a day.

"This hampered our preparation. Another issue was the high obesity rate.”

The one outlet of McDonald’s on the island is one of the busiest in the world.

He says: “The physical condition this team was in was very poor, but I knew in a short amount of time I could make a difference.

"I tried to instil Dutch-influenced total football, keeping the ball on the carpet.”

The player most damaged by the 31-0 loss was goalie Nicky Salapu.

He relocated to the US and was no longer in his national side but still spent hours on his Xbox, playing American Samoa versus Australia on a footie game in a bid to exorcise his demons.

After being lured back to play for his country for the South Pacific region World Cup qualifiers in 2011, Nicky says: “If we win, I’d die a happy person.”

His prayers for victory were answered with the considerable help of Jaiyah.

Thomas calls her his “woman of the match” after her top performance in American Samoa’s first ever win – a 2-1 triumph against Tonga in one of the qualifiers.

“On the first day I was there everyone came in one by one,” Thomas recalls.

He adds: “When Jaiyah walked in I thought it must be the massage therapist. I thought she was a woman.

"But when I asked if she wanted to be called Johnny or Jaiyah she realised I was an inclusive coach; I didn’t care about race and gender.

“In the footballing world we don’t usually have this acceptance of what they call in Samoa the third gender – the fa’afafine – it’s very much accepted there.

“I considered her to be a player and nothing else .

"She was a team leader, and the toughest defender we had.”

Jaiyah says: “I’m not a male or a female – I’m just a soccer player.”

(Image: Daily Mirror / Philip Coburn)

During his team talks, Thomas opened up to his players about the death of his daughter Nicole, 18, in a car crash 10 years earlier.

The film is as much about Thomas overcoming his grief as it is about the players overcoming their terrible performances.

“I lost my daughter but I gained 23 other children,” says Thomas.

“I had grieved to a certain extent, but never to the extent I needed to. Being there helped me become a better person.”

Mike Brett, who directed the film with Steve Jamison, says it got its name from the “next goal wins” rule that has decided many a playground game of footie – something that could have given hope to the American Samoan team over the years.

Mike says: “You could be losing 25-0 but it only takes one flash of brilliance, one solitary moment for a team to go away feeling like winners.”

The victory against Tonga – and a draw against the Cook Islands – elevated the team briefly to 173rd in the FIFA rankings of 204 nations.

Unsurprisingly, they did not qualify for the World Cup finals but few of the teams who will grace the tournament will play with the heart American Samoa showed in that historic first win.

Next Goal Wins is out tomorrow for previews and Friday at selected cinemas.