Watching his beloved football club from a packed grandstand at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground in Wales over Easter, Hollywood superstar Ryan Reynolds was believing a miracle was about to happen.
With Wrexham sitting at the top of the National League, a win over rivals Notts County (they had already swapped places at the top 14 times this season) would put the Red Dragons a giant step closer to automatic promotion to the Football League.
Underdog team with a lot at stake? Owners sweating it out on the sidelines praying key players will perform? Sound familiar to all you millions of Ted Lasso fans out there?
In a classic case of life imitating an Apple TV+ Emmy-winning show, the game followed script perfectly on April 11 when former England goalkeeper Ben Foster pulled off a penalty save in the seventh minute of stoppage time to secure a 3-2 win against Notts County.
“If God would have wanted games to end in a tie, she wouldn’t have invented numbers,” says … not the Canadian actor Reynolds in a post-match locker-room interview, but American coach Ted Lasso (aka Jason Sudeikis).
It’s one of his best folksy, people-first messages to the players at his fictitious AFC Richmond club.
But back to reality.
Reynolds, and fellow actor Rob McElhenney, bought the rights to own the club in 2020 for an estimated £2 million ($3.73 million), and now they’re closer to their dream of leading Wrexham to promotion.
“The squad was overhauled and last season they reached the play-offs in the league and this season have had a headline-grabbing FA Cup run as well as pushing for automatic promotion,” wrote international sports website en.as.com.
“Off the pitch they now function like a truly professional outfit, making use of a physiotherapy team, and a big-money sponsor with social media brand TikTok.”
The harder you work, the luckier you get
The pair were jubilant as they celebrated at the end of that now-famous Vanarama National League fixture, fist-punching the air, screaming and posing for selfies with loyal fans.
Wrexham now moves three points clear at the top of the fifth-tier National League with a game in hand.
Elliot Lee’s 78th-minute strike was the decisive goal after both teams had led during the match.
But it was Foster’s save to deny Cedwyn Scott that secured victory and put the fourth tier of English soccer within sight.
Foster, 40, came out of retirement last month to join Wrexham’s promotion push, 15 years after it was relegated out of the Football League.
It had been billed as possibly the biggest game in the history of soccer at this level – and it didn’t disappoint when Foster provided the Hollywood ending when he plunged low to his right to keep out Scott’s penalty.
‘Two buttons I never like to hit … panic and snooze’
So, let’s break down the ending of Season 2 of the show that has scooped the awards pool for the past two years.
Scriptwriters behind Ted Lasso‘s massive success found joy in writing a storyline about an American college football coach who just won a championship, and gets picked up to move to the UK to rescue – and coach – the flailing Richmond team.
They turned it into a warm, feel-good, culture-clash comedy that shines a light on the players, and the highs and lows of not winning a game for a long time.
A fish-out-of-water American in the UK.
“I have never coached the sport that you folks call football, at any level,” Ted says during a press conference in the opening episode.
“Heck, you could fill two internets with what I don’t know about football.”
To recap, new owner Rebecca Welton (played by Emmy-winning English actor Hannah Waddingham) receives the club in her divorce.
She’s bitter and looking for revenge on her ex, so she hires the least likely candidate to lead his adored team.
And when Ted arrives with his never-ending optimism, he’s instantly seen as a joke by the British media and even some Richmond players until he earns their trust and respect.
And now comes Wrexham’s success mirroring some bits and pieces of the Ted Lasso logline.
The season two finale ends like this: “After a series of close calls, near misses and harsh losses, AFC Richmond entered the final game of the Championship League season with an unexpected hope for promotion back to the Premiership.”
“Entering their final match against Hounslow-based team and local rival Brentford FC, all they had to do was … tie.
“In the end, it came down to a single penalty kick – which star striker Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) opted not to take, encouraging Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández) to take the shot instead.”
They equalised. Enough to bring Richmond back into contention for the Premier League (on this occasion Ted doesn’t mind a tie).
Wow. Spooky.
Time to bring out another Ted Lasso quote: “Believe.”
