American Samoa won, but it also lost in its final game of the OFC Stage 1, 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Qualifiers at the Loto-Tonga Soka Centre in Tonga on Sept. 4, 2015.

The men’s soccer national team beat the Cook Islands 2-0 in an emotionally charged game, falling one goal short of winning the first stage of the OFC qualification process.

The loss created a three-way tie with the Cook Islands, Samoa and American Samoa and coming into the day the territory’s team needed at least a 2-0 win advance to the second stage.

However, Samoa beat Tonga 3-0 in the earlier game, raising the bar for American Samoa, as they needed a 3-0 win over Cook Islands to win the goals difference tiebreaker.  The 2-0 win handed the tournament to the 2011 winners, Samoa.

Samoa won on goals differential with three to two each for American Samoa and Cook Islands.

With the score at 2-0, American Samoa had a flurry of chances in the last 10 minutes but kept missing shots.  Ali’i Mitchell and Justin Mana’o both scored against Cook Islands.

It is a tournament of many firsts for American Samoa: scoring for the first time against Samoa, winning two games in a row, its first clean sheet, having four different players score and scoring six goals in the tournament, beating it’s 2011 total by three.