5 Reasons Why You Should Still Watch Ted Lasso

All right y’all. Let’s be clear about one thing. This piece ain’t going to be like a secret agent. All hush hush and secretive. Instead, it’s going to be like Ted Lasso. Loud, honest and full of takeaways.

I was terribly late to the scene with the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso. But after being egged on by a close friend, I dived right into it. I don’t think I’ve made a better OTT decision for a fair while. Here’s why you should totally watch Ted Lasso even now, five years since it first came out.

A masterclass in football lessons: What the hell is offside? Are Brighton and Hove Albion really a law firm? Why does one team go from the Championship to the Premier League and then to the Champions League? And what in god’s name is a Super League? For a mad football fan like me, all these moments in the show, when Ted got a reality check about the sport he had never coached before, were nicely packaged.  Could the show have had more football? Yes. But Ted Lasso was more than that. At least Ted got to shake hands and have a chat with Pep Guardiola.

My standout moment? When Ted has a brain spurt and devises a new team-play tactic sitting at an American BBQ-themed restaurant in Amsterdam. Turns out something like that tactic already existed. It is called Total Football.

Coach Beard’s reading choices: Coach Beard is a knowledgeable man, even if a bit goofy and mysterious sometimes (Jesus, that red thong was hard to miss). But one thing you cannot overlook is his amazing choice of books that he reads throughout all the three seasons. Starting with Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid to Matthew Syed’s The Greatest: The Quest for Sporting Perfection, Fever Pitch and About a Boy by Nick Hornby, Football Against The Enemy by Simon Kuper, and Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds. Maybe Coach Beard knows something about fungi and football that we don’t.

Male friendships: Let’s be honest. We all wanted to be part of the Diamond Dogs (woof, woof, woof). Male friendships never get the attention they need on screen but the show has a fair share of them, be it the relationship between Nate and Ted, Trent Crimm and Colin Hughes opening up to each other about their sexuality, or Roy Kent and Jamie Tartt at their love-hate best. But the moment that summed it up for me is the season 3 finale when Coach Beard admits to Ted that he cannot return to the US with him. While Lasso agrees, that is the only time he addresses Coach Beard by his first name: Willis.

The soundtrack that left me wanting for more: From Chet Baker to Prateek Kuhad, the choice of music in Ted Lasso had a bit of something for everyone. That’s not all. Queen, Andrew Bird. Pretty much every episode left me with a track that went straight to my Spotify liked songs playlist. Good music always makes or breaks the deal. In Ted Lasso, the music is spot on.

You cannot miss the people stories–love, forgiveness, and kindness: There’s so much to recap here. But it’s actually quite simple: the people stories make Ted Lasso so different from any other comedy drama shows I’ve ever seen. There are so many human angles that keep you hooked: Rebecca’s vengeful mood after her divorce with Rupert Mannion to her bubbling friendship with Keeley Jones. Ted learning to let go of his marriage, dealing with parenting a son in a different time zone and battling panic attacks and anxiety. Roy Kent understanding that his true spot is on the football pitch (first as a player, then a coach) and not the TV studio as a pundit.

The show took on quite a few other topics as well: the mental health of footballers, parenting, racism, homophobia, corruption and oligarchy in football. There’s a lot that hits you like a subtle slap in Ted Lasso. You learn to enjoy it.

The biggest takeaway? With every setback or problem you face, learn to handle it. Don’t let failure or a mistake bog you down. Be a goldfish. Remember, it’s all just poopy, anyway. Let it flow and not bother you a bit. More importantly, Ted’s even forced me to change my choice of favourite McDonald’s dip. Barbecue sauce.