THE GOAL OF TED LASSO
As Arabs, we all grew up around football. We watched the Premier League, we watched the Champions League and we all hated it when Americans called it soccer. I personally recall getting into an interaction with an American during my studies there, saying that football is logically called football because players kick the ball with their feet (duh!), whereas in American Football, players carry the egg-shaped ball with their hands, so it ought to be referred to as hand-egg. This was, however, much before my realization that soccer was the evolution of the British abbreviation for association football ‘assoc’ with the dropping of the A and the addition of the 'er' being slang. So once again, the problems of the Arabs return to the British! And once again, America comes in to clean Britain’s mess: Enter Ted Lasso.
For years, we’ve lacked a proper football show. Sure, we had ‘bend it like Beckham’ and the ‘GOAL’ trilogy, which helped alleviate our cravings to see our favorite Goal magazine scenarios (Saynarios?) translated onto the big screen, but we never received our own ‘Blind Side.’ The closest we ever got to that was ‘Kicking and Screaming’, and that’s a children’s movie! But thanks to Apple TV, we finally have our football show. Except, it never was about football, was it? (Yes, I’m referring to Ted’s comment on Trent Krimm’s book The Lasso Way, later renamed the Richmond Way).
Ted Lasso is not about football. It's not about Richmond. It's not about the Premier League. As a matter of fact, the team gets relegated halfway through the life of the show! Ted Lasso isn’t even about Ted Lasso! Ted Lasso is about camaraderie, and that’s what made it a special show. Football was just a very familiar backdrop. It blended sports, comedy, drama, and romance in a format never seen before on television, unless you count Jason Sudeikis’ HILARIOUS creation of Ted Lasso & Coach Beard, whose role was reprised by Brendan Hunt on an NBC parody of Football 10 years ago which created the comedically golden line ‘How many countries are in this country!?'. The show took the comedy of those skits and created something exceptional.
Ted Lasso teaches us about the importance of good intentions and trust in our colleagues, who can, with mutual effort and respect, turn into friends and maybe even family. Ted himself is hired to coach Richmond with the secret intention that his inexperience would lead the club to failure, but his folksy, optimistic, empowering, and trusting style of charismatic/hands-off leadership proves unexpectedly successful and wins over Rebecca Welton, owner of AFC Richmond, who was largely seen as an antagonist in season one but grew into what was called the ‘matriarch’ of the club in the final episode, selling 49% of the club to the fans.
Premiering in 2020, that show highlighted all our struggles during the pandemic. It made us laugh, and it certainly made me cry. It was heartwarming and portrayed masculinity as a thing of beautiful strength in trusted vulnerability, not a thing of impenetrable solitude and triggered violence. For doing that, against the backdrop of football no less, Ted Lasso has deservedly won two Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Critics' Choice Television Awards. It did what was thought to be impossible in American television: it made football, actual football, resonate with American audiences. And while today football is not the pariah sport it used to be, and yes, jokes about soccer moms remain, Ted Lasso remains one of the best feel-good shows on television that is sure to put a smile on anyone’s face. It is a reminder to us all that even in the most difficult of times, there is always hope. It is significant particularly to us Arabs because all this happened in the run-up and conclusion of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, the first-ever World Cup held in the Arab Nation and the one where Arab teams performed exceptionally well (We love you Saudi Arabia and Morocco!) and it did it in a way that empowered players from everywhere from minori<es from Canada, to stars from Mexico, to a fully-fledged Zlatan clone! I particularly loved Sam Obsinaya’s, Jamie TarW, Roy Kent, and Collin Hughes arc’s all of which show that men can be professional, skilled, and vulnerable at the same time.
All in all, Ted Lasso is filled with a cast of likable and relatable characters who were each written with witty senses of humor and heartwarming (tear-dropping) empathy, all of whom will be missed. Their growth and ability to adapt to challenges create an uplifting and inspiring story to the point that it's hard to believe that all of this is set in the English Premier League. All in all, Ted Lasso is a breath of fresh air in a world that is often filled with negativity, and I only wish we had one more season to avoid that feeling that everything had to be tied up in those last two episodes. Though it culminated in a satisfying ending, I guess I just didn’t want it to end so soon.
