To help turn their luck around, the Football Federation American Samoa hire Dutch-born, America-based coach Thomas Rongen.

[4] Over the next three weeks, Rongen trains the team, and introduces some players based overseas, until they can acquit themselves with pride at the qualifiers at the OFC World Cup Qualification.

Jaiyah Saelua, a member of the squad since 2003, is a faʻafafine and is the first transgender player to compete in a FIFA World Cup qualifier.

In The Observer he gave Next Goal Wins four stars out of five and wrote that "whether or not you give two hoots about "the beautiful game" (and I don't), this charming and uplifting documentary will have you cheering for the underdogs and wishing that all footballers were this humble, determined and just plain decent.

In The New York Times Anita Gates called the film "splendid celebration-of-humanity documentary" comparing its best moments to an Edith Wharton novel.

In August 2019, Variety reported that director Taika Waititi would oversee a feature film adaption of Next Goal Wins for The Walt Disney Company under their Searchlight Pictures banner.

Garrett Basch, Jonathan Cavendish, Andy Serkis, Mike Brett, and Steve Jamison served as producers.