One of their defenders literally climbs coconut trees for a living, but getting a result against Spain even scoring a goal ultimately proved insurmountable for little old Tahiti.
When it comes to David-versus-Goliath clashes in world football, this was it.
It was almost like when you used to play Pro Evolution Soccer on the PlayStation, go the best team possible and play the worst, just to see how many goals you could score and feel good about yourself for five or six minutes.
But even though the Tahitians shipped 10 goals and appeared to think defending on the halfway line was normal, it was a novelty to see a team like Tahiti sharing the stage with the might of the World champions.
Naturally it got me wondering how on earth they got into the Confederations Cup in the first place and, for those who don’t follow football on the other side of the planet, it transpires they won the 2012 Oceania Football Confederation Nations Cup.
Tahiti romped their group, beating the likes of Samoa 10-1, New Caledonia 4-3 and Vanuatu 4-1.
The fact that these countries are so often answers on the BBC quiz show Pointless, which challenges contestants to name the most obscure answers to questions, kind of speaks for itself.
Anyway, they qualified along with New Caledonia from their group and were joined in the semi-finals by New Zealand and the Solomon Islands, eventually going on to beat New Caledonia 1-0 in the final.
So the bottom line is that on paper Tahiti deserved to be there and the fact they won a tournament involving the likes of New Zealand, who famously held Italy to a draw in the last World Cup, gives them a bit of clout surely?
Having said that, football isn’t played on paper.
What’s the point of all this rambling about Tahiti you might ask?
Well, it occurred to me that if Tahiti can get into the Confederations Cup, what’s to stop them from qualifying for a World Cup?
And that brings me right back to Scotland.
Before anybody starts, it’s not sour grapes or anything else, but in my opinion a World Cup should showcase the best teams in the world.
And unfortunately I don’t think we’ll truly see the best teams in the world next summer even though the cream will still rise to the top in the end no doubt.
Take Australia, for example.
They’ve qualified for Brazil and they will enter the draw alongside the hosts, Japan, Iran and South Korea.
Fair play to them for coming through their qualifying rounds and doing what they needed to do.
But how can it be fair that all Australia eventually needed to do was finish second in a group which contained teams ranked 75th, 98th and 101st in the world (Jordan, Iraq and Oman respectively), while Scotland have to try to do likewise in a group against four teams currently in the top 50?
I’m not saying Australia wouldn’t have made it faced with that scenario anyway they may well have but the point is that many countries have the deck stacked against them before they start.
In Scotland’s case, Croatia are ranked fourth in the world, Belgium are 12th, Serbia are 36th, and Wales are 45th.
For their part, Scotland are sitting 74th in the FIFA rankings, while Macedonia the other team in our qualifying group are 78th.
Victory over Croatia aside, Scotland don’t deserve to be in Brazil next year and I’m not arguing they should be.
What I am arguing is that the mechanism in place for teams qualifying for the World Cup seems to be flawed, as nations who perhaps should be there inevitably won’t be.
To be clear, I’m not trying to take anything away from the teams who have qualified for Brazil or who are on the verge, wherever they are in the world.
Names like Uzbekistan and Panama are still among those in the mix and if they end up getting there, they will be there on merit. You can only beat what’s in front of you after all.
But it just makes you wonder if some sort of rankings overhaul is needed by FIFA to ensure that the World Cup gives the best teams a chance to shine.
Not just those who happen to have so-called ‘lesser’ nations as neighbours.