Second comedy about a Kansas no-hoper joining an English soccer team announced

You wait forever for a comedy series about a no-hoper from Kansas joining a top-flight English football team – and then two come along at once.

In a new Apple TV+comedy series Ted Lasso, former Saturday Night Live regular Jason Sudeikis plays a small-time college football coach hired to coach a professional soccer team in England, despite having no experience in the sport.

The premise has a strange echo of BBC Two’s new comedy series, The First Team, which launched last week and revolves around a player from Sporting Kansas City hired to play for a professional soccer team in England, despite having no profile.

Apple today unveiled the first picture from Ted Lasso, announcing that it will premiere on August 14. 

Sudeikis developed the series with  Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence, How I Met Your Mother story editor Joe Kelly and Brendan Hunt, who starred in Horrible Bosses 2 alongside Sudeikis and also plays a coach here.

The ten-part series is based on a character Sudeikis performed in a series of shorts for NBC Sports in 2013 and 2014 to accompany its Premier League coverage.

Published: 1 Jun 2020