How 'Ted Lasso' captured the attention (and admiration) of soccer players around the world

In its first season, "Ted Lasso" proved it clearly is more than a soccer show.

The Apple TV+ series which follows the fictional AFC Richmond of the very real Premier League couldn’t have garnered 20 Emmy nominations if it wasn’t. Not in a country where soccer remains in a perpetual state as "the next big thing."

But the show has struck a chord with the global soccer community, including players and coaches at the highest levels, and particularly among American supporters eager to embrace "Ted Lasso" as their own.

That’s a testament to the "Ted Lasso" team’s dedication to the sport, cast members said. Those involved are proud of their commitment to ensuring all aspects of a pastime are accurately portrayed, allowing the show to best tell the types of personal stories that draw fans to the world’s most popular game to begin with.

"You can’t fake passion about football," said actress Juno Temple. "The general consensus of being around [the cast] is that they all do really love football. It’s definitely a part of their lives, and I think that’s a really cool thing to be around. That’s not fake."

The Ted Lasso-Alex Morgan connection

There is a certain suspension of reality required for soccer buffs watching "Ted Lasso," which begins its second season Friday on Apple’s streaming TV service. The show’s origin is surreal itself, inspired by a series of promotions for NBC Sports’ English Premier League coverage in 2013 in which an early version of Ted Lasso is hired — and promptly fired — by EPL club Tottenham Hotspur. In the series’ opening season, Ted and Coach Beard, played by co-creators Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt respectively, leave Division II college football for a job at AFC Richmond, a perennial mid-table Premier League club near London, despite zero experience in or knowledge of the sport.

Still, Ted’s nonstop positivity, holistic coaching style and nonchalance about winning or losing help him win over many of Richmond’s non-believers. His attitude also can turn even the most hardened of real-world soccer supporters and elite participants into Lasso disciples. Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp has proclaimed his admiration for the series, and now-Roma boss Jose Mourinho appeared with Sudeikis in a pair of web shorts last year.

The "Ted Lasso" fan perhaps most notable to U.S. viewers can be found on the most decorated team in American soccer.

U.S. women’s national team star Alex Morgan brought the show to life during a NWSL match in May after scoring for the Orlando Pride, imitating a scene in which Ted asks Jamie Tartt, AFC Richmond’s prima donna striker played by Phil Dunster, to better sell his decoy role by wildly waving his arms up and down while running toward goal.

When you can't help but feel inspired by @TedLasso for the celly 🤣🤣 https://t.co/hKOUtpfdNy

— Alex Morgan (@alexmorgan13) May 23, 2021

To quote Coach Lasso, "that’s when sports and art combine."

"Alex Morgan did the thing," Dunster said while mimicking Morgan/Lasso during a video interview with Newsday. "And she’s an absolute football god."

Morgan tweeted, "When you can’t help but feel inspired by @TedLasso for the celly" with a replay of her handiwork. Earlier this month, Sudeikis and Hunt further cemented the American soccer-Lasso connection, appearing in character on U.S. Soccer social media channels to announce the Team USA women’s soccer roster for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. Of course, Lasso and Beard gave Morgan a few more celebration ideas.

"I think 'Ted Lasso' resonates because even though soccer might not yet be considered America’s pastime, our sport is really starting to make inroads into our culture and I think the fans of the show appreciate that." Morgan said in an email to Newsday from Tokyo. "Every professional soccer player understands the ups and downs of the game, so to see that portrayed with the positivity and belief that Coach Lasso brings to AFC Richmond is a message we can all get behind."

When Arsenal and Richmond collide

Even icons of English soccer are embracing the Lasso way.

Kola Bokinni, who plays AFC Richmond defender Isaac McAdoo, encountered Arsenal legend and longtime English soccer pundit Ian Wright during a recent night out.

As told by Dunster: "Kola is an Arsenal fan, and he saw Ian Wright in the bar and said, ‘Oh my God, that’s Ian Wright.’ And Ian Wright comes over to him and goes, ‘Mate, I love your show, can I get a photo?’"

Brett Goldstein, nominated for a supporting actor Emmy for his portrayal of AFC Richmond’s stoic captain Roy Kent, said the reception from those in the soccer community has been validating for the work they do to create a realistic feel for the show. A rabid Tottenham supporter and "son of a football hooligan," Goldstein was proud to boast that his boyhood hero Gary Lineker was fond of "Ted Lasso" and its teachings.

"We talked about it a lot, the football in the show," said Goldstein, who also is a producer for the series. "As talented and brilliant as the cast is, and some of them are really, really good players, we’re also not full-time professional footballers. We’re telling stories within the game, so it’s the same as choreographing a fight scene or a dance scene. Things need to happen for the storytelling, so as long as you’re getting the emotion of that football beat right, then it’s sort of OK.

"The fact that we have heard from a lot of footballers that really enjoy the show really means a lot to us because I know how hard it is to get these things right, so that’s huge."

'Football is life'

AFC Richmond’s joyful striker Dani Rojas, played by Cristo Fernández, often proclaims "football is life," with the implied meaning that football is life’s most important thing. But at times, Rojas’ signature phrase has a more subtle message — soccer is just as unpredictable and chaotic as the rest of the human experience. The sport provides its own ups and downs that can only be taken in stride, each adding to the larger history for any given player, coach or supporter.

"There’ll be some people who will say football is just people kicking the ball around the field," Dunster said. "But the reason that you and I love football so much is that it’s about stories."

Dunster believes those around soccer appreciate the show for the same reason they enjoy the sport — those very narratives that create a person’s history. "Ted Lasso" successfully uses AFC Richmond and the Premier League as a frame to tell personal tales, even of those who never take the field. Temple earned a supporting actress Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Keeley Jones. The character even admits she doesn’t particularly like the sport — although she knows how to act at matches, screaming at the referee on cue — yet is ever-present around the club as a love interest first to Jamie and later Roy, friend to team owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) and eventually branding consultant for the players.

"It’s centered around the sport, but it’s really centered around a team, and I think Keeley is an integral part of the team," Temple said. "She may not kick about with the ball, but she’s supporting at games and she’s definitely there for the entire team. And she’s having a deeply romantic, wonderful relationship with one of the players who is starting a new chapter."

Jeremy Swift, also an Emmy nominee for his supporting role as AFC Richmond’s director of football operations Higgins, believes the show succeeds in giving the kinds of intimate details we don’t always learn about actual sports figures.

"Sports-wise, when you see the backstory of players, it’s usually just after the match. ‘What went wrong? What went right? The last few minutes were intense,’ or whatever," Swift said. "Or, you see them in Hello! Magazine in some kind of palatial mansion or something. So to see them kind of at work struggling with the job and the team day-to-day, I think anybody's interest in sport will marry that with whatever sport they're into."

Season 2's expectations

Dealing with various personal struggles off the pitch again will be a theme of the new season, Dunster said. He believes it will further cement the show’s status among soccer fans.

"We see in Series 2 as well there’s a football psychologist that comes in and we come to understand that this show and this sport is less to do with physicality and more to do with human nature and human relations. And I think that’s what we love in sports, we love seeing the underdog story, because maybe we see ourselves in those stories."

AFC Richmond’s story continues with a much different set of on-field challenges for the club after being relegated from the Premier League in last season’s finale. The trailer hints at a deep run in the FA Cup, the oldest soccer competition in the world contested by more than 700 clubs across 10 levels of the English football league system, but typically won by a handful of the country’s richest, most popular teams.

"We go to some pretty cool places this season, for people who are interested in football, AFC Richmond, you can see from the trailer, go to a pretty special football club," Dunster said. "There are also some really cool people who are going to be involved this season. And from a football perspective, there’s more heartbreak and there’s more joy and there’s more just good stuff."

And while many American "Ted Lasso" fans may never watch a minute of the sport unless AFC Richmond is involved, Goldstein would be thrilled if more Americans took advice from Lasso regarding his version of football — "Be curious."

"I think for America, which is the land of the free, football is the freest game, it's this beautiful game, and the sports that Americans have, there are so many rules, it's so restrictive I don't get it," Goldstein joked. "I think soccer finally has started taking off in America anyway, but I wonder if 'Ted Lasso' maybe has shown to Americans, it’s still about a team, and it’s about all the things you like in sport, but that you’ve been scared of in real football. And now you’re seeing, ‘Oh yeah, we can get into this, it’s the same stuff, same stakes. But better.’"