Like a remorseless Lionel Messi peppering the England penalty area with crosses, toe-curling moments came thick and fast during Fifa’s recent World Cup of Greed. Cancelled red cards, hydration breaks, that giant gaudy “Fifa” logo flashing with all the classiness of a fruit machine in an early-hours boozer. From first kick-off to last, the All-American World Cup was the tournament of infinite cringe.
But for the World Cup’s rock-bottom moment, we had to wait until the final at the joyless concrete atrocity that is the MetLife Stadium and Chris Martin’s appalling half-time show. It was during that carnival of crass that Jason Sudeikis delivered the final humiliation to World Cup 2026 as his gee-whiz Apple TV alter-ego Ted Lasso put in the cameo not a single person on planet earth had asked for.
“Jump scare” doesn’t even begin to do justice to the horrors that unfolded as Sudeikis treated the match – the World Cup final! – as a guerrilla marketing opportunity for the return of Ted Lasso for a surprise fourth season.
Up and down the “New York/New Jersey” touchline he strutted (I’m having traumatic flashbacks as we speak) before he introduced the next performer, the Carabao Cup of pop stars that is Justin Bieber. “Go out there, don’t be nervous. Nobody’s watching. Make us proud,” purred Sudeikis-as-Lasso, brimming with the sort of American optimism that makes the rest of humanity want to claw out their eyeballs. It was like being strapped to a table and force-fed mom’s apple pie through a funnel.
The original plan had been for Ted Lasso to run three seasons (Photo: Apple TV/Colin Hutton)Could things get any worse for football? Of course! First came Fifa boss Gianni Infantino’s deranged plan to hive off a chunk of the World Cup to a private consortium headed by the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Infantino’s infernal scheme fell to pieces upon first contact with reality – though the fact it even got off the starting grid was bad enough. But there’s worse, if you can believe it: the fourth series of Ted Lasso has arrived.
This was not meant to be. The original plan had been for Ted Lasso to run three seasons as it told the story of US college football coach Lasso’s unlikely success as the manager of fictional London Premier League team, AFC Richmond (a sort of fuzzy-at-the-edges fantasy take on Crystal Palace, down to the shared jersey colours). Frankly, it was a shock it lasted that long, given the one-note joke of an optimistic American parachuting into the cutthroat world of English football only for his aw-shucks cheeriness to sweep all before him. It was astonishing that it didn’t run out of treacle long before the series three finale in which Ted headed back to America.
But the show has been that rare break-out success for Apple, which otherwise specialises in (admittedly brilliant) science fiction TV that nobody watches. And, as inevitably as your hometown hero signing for a bigger club, so Ted is back for more soccer-ific schmaltz.
The kindest thing to say about Ted Lasso is that it’s a dramedy about football for people who have no interest in the sport and may, in fact, actively loathe it. Everything has been drizzled in saccharin. The tone is cutesy and heartwarming and every character – even Brett Goldstein’s unconvincing Roy Keane/Vinnie Jones stand-in Roy Kent – is a softie at heart. It is a fantasy of English football brimming with ersatz “you got this” positivity that – as with those hydration breaks and giant golden Fifa logos – has been ruthlessly engineered for American eyeballs alone.
The world of Ted Lasso is one big high-five (Photo: Colin Hutton/Apple TV)Despite the sweetness, it’s a grisly, gruelling watch for real football fans. And that’s because Ted Lasso misses out the most crucial component of being a supporter: the sheer misery of it all. In Ted Lasso, everything is a teachable moment, an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and be the best version of yourself. The world is one big high-five; all problems can be solved by punching the air and looking on the bright side.
Of course, the reality of being a football supporter could not be more different. It is a lifetime of agony punctuated by occasional, fleeting glimmers of happiness. Even those are gone before you can quite grab hold of them. Ask England fans who could feel the sun on their face as the team closed in on a World Cup final only for it to be snatched away in the most brutal fashion possible. That backdrop of near-constant misery is the essence of being a football supporter, which is probably why the songs we sing are so hilarious. If we weren’t laughing, we’d be sobbing – and in the world of Ted Lasso, sadness is not allowed. It would kill a vibe that is as shiny and plastic as an iPhone case.
Before I slide in with another crunching tackle, it has to be acknowledged that the latest season does have the laudable goal of calling out the poor treatment of women’s football. The story begins with Ted being lured back from Kansas to coach the Richmond ladies team. But even before they have kicked a ball, he has to get a handle on the shoddy training facilities, reluctant sponsors and journalists who use a press conference about the women’s side to ask questions about the men’s team.
Prejudices against women’s football are fading, but they are still an issue and bravo to Ted Lasso for calling them out. It is also brave enough to touch the live rail that is the argument that women often do as much to maintain the patriarchy as men. This comes to the fore when Richmond’s owner Rebecca Welton (the excellent Hannah Waddingham) rules out appointing her entirely competent coach Alice (Tanya Reynolds) as manager and opts for Ted instead.
The series smooths out football’s rough edges (Photo: Michael Becker/Apple TV)These scenes are genuinely hard-hitting. The problem is that Ted Lasso immediately pivots to feel-good froth by having Alice agree to work as Ted’s assistant. Once raised, the tricky question of women helping men keep other women down is immediately dropped.
It also needs to be acknowledged that Ted Lasso isn’t the only streaming hit devoted to smoothing out football’s rough edges. That is also the mission of Disney’s reality show Welcome to Wrexham and Prime Video’s Birmingham City documentary, Built in Birmingham: Brady and the Blues.
The former chronicles the rise of the once-moribund Welsh side, now backed by the megabucks Hollywood duo of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Built in Birmingham, meanwhile, finds the wildly uninterested American football great Tom Brady half-heartedly putting his millions behind Birmingham City – though it somehow manages not to mention the club’s most famous ex-player, Jude Bellingham, despite Birmingham retiring his number after he left aged 17.
These shows are all perfectly bingeable, but it’s the feel-good vibes they puff out into the atmosphere that are the problem. This is the vision of football pushed by the big streamers and by Fifa’s Infantino: the idea that the sport is one big half-time commercial, full of laughing, jolly fans, where the good times go on forever. But that’s a lie. Football is about suffering, frustration and endless agony. True supporters wouldn’t have it any other way – which is why we are so repulsed by the feel-good fakery of Ted Lasso, a celebration of British football that could not be more American if it tried.
New episodes of ‘Ted Lasso’ stream on Wednesdays on Apple TV
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