Ted Lasso is technically a comedy. That’s how it’s treated by the Television Academy. The Apple TV+ show recently earned more 2022 Emmy noms than any other comedy show. And yet, fans of the series know that labeling it as such misses what makes it great. Somehow a show about a clueless American football coach managing an English soccer team is one of TV’s most moving, emotional, and sincere series around. Now Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are going to try and capture that Ted Lasso feeling in real life. The two purchased their own professional football club across the pond. And the first trailer for their FX docuseries Welcome to Wrexham shows just how seriously the two funny men are taking that responsibility.
This Welcome to Wrexham trailer is not what I was expecting from this show. I thought it would be like Nathan for You combined with Police Academy, as told by Deadpool and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Mac. I did not expect a docuseries this emotional and downright raw. But that’s good news for fans of Wrexham AFC, the third oldest professional football club in the world. The show will follow the two Hollywood stars as they try to revive the team that means so much to the working-class town in North Wales.
But can dedication make up for a total lack of literally everything else that goes into owning a sports team? Especially one in a foreign country when you know nothing about the game? That’s what the two performers, their fans, players, and viewers will learn together. The Welcome to Wrexham trailer certainly gives us a taste of what we’ll see. Additionally, here’s the official Welcome to Wrexham synopsis from FX:
In 2020, Rob and Ryan teamed up to purchase the 5th tier Red Dragons in the hopes of turning the club into an underdog story the whole world could root for. The worry? Rob and Ryan have no experience in football or working with each other. From Hollywood to Wales, from the pitch to the locker room, the front office to the pub, Welcome to Wrexham will track Rob and Ryan’s crash course in football club ownership and the inextricably connected fates of a team and a town counting on two actors to bring some serious hope and change to a community that could use it.
If their attempts are half as entertaining as Ted Lasso, they’ll at least end up with a winning TV show. The Welcome to Wrexham trailer certainly has piqued our interest. For the sake of Wrexham’s fans, though, we hope they also end up with a winning team.
Welcome to Wrexham kicks off at FX on August 24.
