American Samoa and Samoa Win Openers

American Samoa 2 Tonga 1

It was a historic opener to the first round of Oceania qualifying as American Samoa picked up its first win ever.

Ramin Ott was the hero, scoring in the 44th minute, to give Thomas Rongen a lead in his first match at the helm. Never before had American Samoa scored more than one goal in a FIFA match and in the 74th minute Shalom Luani sent the side into dreamland with a goal that will go down in the annals of Oceania history.

Tonga made the Samoans work for it in the end, pulling a goal back in the 87th minute cohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifurtesy of Unaloto Ki Atenoa Feao. They had one great chance to equalize, but goalkeeper Nicky Salapu made a fantastic save to preserve the famous win.

Samoa 3 Cook Islands 2

Samoa made it a big day for teams ranked at the foot of the FIFA World Rankings, scoring a late goal in added time for a 3-2 victory.

It was a back and forth match with Samoa taking the lead twice through Luki Gosche, only to be pegged back each time by Campbell Bell for Cook Islands.

Just when the match appeared headed for a share of the spoils, Albert Bell popped up to score the winner in the 92nd minute and hand the hosts all three points.

This win now sets up the juicy possibility of a winner-take-all match on Saturday between America Samoa and Samoa should they each win their games on Tuesday.