Xavier Samin (born 1 January 1978) is a French former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

for

AS Tefana Association Sportive Tefana Football, is a football club from Faʻaʻā, Tahiti, French Polynesia. The club plays their home matches at Stade Louis Ganivet. The club became the second French Polynesian team to have reached the final of the OFC C ...

and AS Dragon in the Tahiti Division Fédérale and the Tahiti national team.

Career

Samin started playing football at the age of eight at

. Ten years later he was promoted to Tefana's main adult team, on which he remains to date. In 17 seasons with Tefana, Samin won the

Tahiti First Division The Tahitian Ligue 1 is the top division of the Fédération Tahitienne de Football in French Polynesia. The league is currently named Ligue 1 Vini for sponsorship reasons. Competition format Competition is divided into a regular season and play- ...

three times, as well as five

Tahiti Cup The Tahiti Cup (also known as Coupe de Polynésie or Coupe de Tahiti Nui) is the premier football knockout tournament in French Polynesia. It was created in 1938, and gives the winner of the tournament a berth in the Coupe de France. Between the ...

s and the 2007 Tahiti Coupe des Champions. Outside of the field, Samin works as a football teacher, and an

accountant An accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy. Accountants who have demonstrated competency through their professional associations' certification exams are certified to use titles such as Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certif ...

. The first caps for Samin in the Tahitian squad were in 2000. He has since taken part in four

FIFA World Cup qualification The FIFA World Cup qualification is a set of competitive matches that a national association football team plays in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the men's FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments ar ...

tournaments, and was a major part of the Tahitian title of the

2012 OFC Nations Cup The 2012 OFC Nations Cup was the ninth edition of the OFC Nations Cup organised by the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC). The group stage of the tournament also doubled as the second round of the OFC qualification tournament for the 2014 FIFA ...

. Starting the competition as a backup goalkeeper to Mickaël Roche, Samin was promoted to a starting position in the third match, a 4–1 win against

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

. He was also the starting goalkeeper for the next two matches, keeping a clean sheet in the semifinal match against

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

and in the final against

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

, both won by 1–0. His long experience with the "To'a Aitos" made defensive midfielder Lorenzo Tehau declare that "I’ve played with Samin since I was a kid. He’s like my dad." The OFC Nations Cup qualified Tahiti for its first international competition, the

2013 FIFA Confederations Cup The 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup was the ninth FIFA Confederations Cup, which was held in Brazil from 15 to 30 June 2013 as a prelude to the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The most recent winners of the six continental championships appeared in the tourn ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. There Samin played in the team's first game, a 6–1 defeat to

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte is the List of largest cities in Brazil, sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population of around 2.3 million, and the third largest metropolitan area, containing a population of 6 million. It is the List of cities in Sout ...

. He also wrote a

fight song A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand, these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...

for the Tahitian squad, "Song of the To’a Aitos".

Honours

Tahiti *

OFC Nations Cup The OFC Men's Nations Cup, known as the OFC Nations Cup before the 2024 OFC Men's Nations Cup, 2024 edition, is the primary association football competition contested by the senior list of men's national association football teams, men's natio ...

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

; 3rd place

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

Pacific Games The Pacific Games (French: Jeux du Pacifique), is a continent, continental multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from Oceania. The inaugural Games took place in 1963 South Pacific Games, 1963 in Suva, Fiji, and most recently i ...

: 3rd place

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Samin, Xavier 1978 births Living people French Polynesian men's footballers Tahiti men's international footballers 2004 OFC Nations Cup players 2002 OFC Nations Cup players 2012 OFC Nations Cup players 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup players OFC Nations Cup–winning players Men's association football goalkeepers