Jason Sudeikis says ‘Ted Lasso’ has inspired Premier League soccer coaches

The American sports comedy-drama television series, Ted Lasso, proved to be a major hit. For those who don’t know, the show follows the career of Ted Lasso, an American football coach at college level who is unexpectedly hired by an English soccer team. Despite expectations that Lasso is destined to fail, his good humored and unorthodox methods turn out to be success.

Jason Sudeikis, the actor that interpreted Lasso, recently revealed in an interview with AP that his character has unexpectedly inspired soccer coaches far and wide.

“More often than not we’ve heard back [about the series] from the coaches, which is even more flattering because, you know, they could think that I was like, you know, making fun of them or ‘taking the piss’ as they say over there. And the fact that they’ve embraced it and some feel even influenced and inspired by [it] is like really flattering. And that’s as shocking to me as any hope that people get from our fun little comedy show.”

To prepare for the role, Sudeikis explained that he spent plenty of time in football stadiums and watching matches: “we’d go see a Premier League match almost every weekend and, you know, this season more than the other ones we got to spend time, you know, maybe going down to the pitch after the game.”