Ted Lasso started out as art imitating life, as a way to promote the British Premier League to an American audience. So it only makes sense to continue that thread — particularly as Apple TV+ prepares to unleash Season 2 of the series in July.
And so it makes perfect sense to see Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso and Brendan Hunt as Coach Beard introducing the 18-member roster of the U.S. Olympic Women's Soccer Team.
It's 7 minutes of the writing/acting pair — in character — rattling off the names that you knew were going to make the team. Is it cheesy? Yeah. Is it a little more fun than usual? Absolutely.
As for the U.S. team itself, 17 of the 18 members were on the 2019 Women's World Cup championship team, and 11 were on the roster for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Should the women win out in Tokyo, they'll be the first team to do so in consecutive World Cup and Olympic competitions.
“It’s been a long process to get to this point, longer than anyone thought it would be, but we collected a lot of information on the players over the past year and half in trainings, in their club matches and in international games and we’re confident that we’ve selected the team with the best chance for success in Japan,” head coach Vlatko Andonovski.
The U.S. Women will open their Tokyo Olympics play two days before the actual Opening Ceremony, with a July 21 match against Sweden at 5:30 p.m. local time, or 4:30 a.m. Eastern. Their second match is at a much more respectable 8:30 p.m. local/7:30 a.m. Eastern time on July 24 against New Zealand. Their third scheduled match will be at 5 p.m. local/4 a.m. Eastern on July 27 against Australia.
MORE: How to watch the U.S. Olympic Team Trials
Ted Lasso is a series about a college football coach from Kansas and his assistant, who are transplanted from the Midwest to AFC Richmond in England, as a plot by the team's owner to ruin the club and thus get back at her ex-husband, who loves the club. (If this sounds a bit like Major League, well, yeah.) But Ted Lasso (the coach) turns out to not just be a mustachioed platitude machine — though he certainly is that.
The first season of the series garnered numerous award nominations and netted a trio of Critics' Choice Television Awards, and a SAG Award and Golden Globe for Sudeikis.
