Ted Lasso, at its core, is a scripted series not based on a true story, and Jason Sudeikis's title character is not a dramatization of any single real-life coach. However, the creators of the hit Apple TV series are on record as confirming they drew from numerous real people and elements of professional football, which helps explain why Ted Lasso's fictional story can sometimes feel remarkably authentic.
The question of real-life inspirations is especially relevant with the show back in the spotlight following the August 5 premiere of Season 4, which sees Ted return to England to coach AFC Richmond’s new women’s team. Ted Lasso Season 4 consists of 10 weekly episodes, with the finale scheduled for October 7, but its central premise remains fictional: an American football coach crossing the Atlantic and unexpectedly finding himself in charge of an English soccer club.
Ted Lasso actually predates the Apple TV series by several years. Sudeikis first played the character in a 2013 NBC Sports promotional campaign introducing American audiences to the network’s new Premier League coverage, which revolved around the premise of a fictional American coach being hired by Tottenham Hotspur. NBC brought the character back the following year, before Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly eventually began developing him into something suitable for a television series. The considerably more rounded version introduced on Apple TV in 2020 is the same character who eventually returned for Ted Lasso Season 4, rather than someone adapted from a real coach’s biography.
None of that is to say that Ted was created in a vacuum. Sudeikis has previously identified his former high school basketball coach Donnie Campbell as one major influence, particularly when it comes to Ted’s Midwestern sayings and tendency to turn coaching situations into broader life lessons. Sudeikis has also said his father contributed Ted’s mustache and talkative personality, while telling Sports Illustrated that former Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp partly inspired the TV incarnation of the character with his people-first leadership style. Sudeikis has also named Pep Guardiola among the real-life coaches he admires, but there is no indication that Guardiola inspired any specific aspect of Ted Lasso. Ultimately, Ted is best understood as a composite fictional character rather than a representation of any one real person.
Roy Kent offers another example of how Ted Lasso mixes recognizable football influences with original characterization. Co-creator Brendan Hunt has acknowledged Roy Keane as an inspiration for the idea behind Kent, explaining that the writers wanted a football personality who would naturally clash with Ted’s relentless positivity and landed on the famously intense former Manchester United captain.
However, Brett Goldstein has drawn a firm distinction between that conception and his own performance. Asked by Vanity Fair whether Keane inspired his portrayal, Goldstein said there was "zero" truth to that from his perspective. Instead, he identified Bill Sikes, the violent antagonist from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, as his personal reference point for the character. With Roy Kent playing a major role in Ted Lasso Season 4, his presence continues to underline how even a character named like an obvious parody of a real person can end up accumulating unrelated inspirations over the course of production.
AFC Richmond is also entirely fictional, despite being integrated into the real English football world so convincingly that it can sometimes appear otherwise. The club plays genuine English teams throughout the series, while Richmond’s fictional Nelson Road Stadium is represented by Selhurst Park, the real home of London-based Premier League side Crystal Palace. Other recognizable grounds and football personalities have appeared throughout the show, and Richmond has even crossed into real soccer games, with the fictional club returning in EA Sports FC 27. That extensive use of real clubs, venues, personalities, and football conventions gives the series a grounding in reality without making AFC Richmond itself real.
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