Homegrown U.S. Men’s Soccer talent from Southern California have been getting a pep talk from a great American soccer coach who doesn’t know what he’s doing — and it’s working.
That’s right. The words of fictional soccer coach Ted Lasso are being sprinkled throughout Southern California in the days leading up to the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Quatar, which begins this weekend.
In a campaign organized by Apple TV, which airs “Ted Lasso,” 26 giant billboards and banners have gone up – or are going up – in the hometowns of many of the players.
In Southern California, the campaign has, eh, kicked off. That means you might come across three, in particular, if you’re buzzing around anywhere from L.A. to the San Gabriel Valley to the Inland Empire, and another if you’re down in San Diego.
There’s Pico Rivera soccer star and midfielder Cristian Roldan, whose banner at El Rancho High School is urging him on. Aaron Long’s banner was at the Rancho Epicenter Stadium, in Rancho Cucamonga, spurring on the former UC Riverside standout. But it blew away last night. Apple says the company is working on replacing the sign at the Epicenter. L.A. hometowner Haji Wright will soon have some Lasso words. His sign is expected to be put up next week at Sunset and Glendale, in L.A. Luca De La Torre, a San Diego native, is getting the Lasso treatment at Grand Avenue and Bayard Street, San Diego.
Lasso, whose character is played by Jason Sudeikis, is a small-time college football coach from Kansas hired to coach a professional soccer team in England. The catch? He has no experience coaching soccer, and therein lies the fun, and the comedy, of the show, as his deep gaps in knowledge he fills in with, well, being Ted Lasso — the folksy, relentlessly optimistic person who gradually wins over the haters.
In that spirit, in the Pico Rivera banner, which was put up on Saturday, Lasso said:
“I can’t wait to see everyone’s reaction when you step foot on the field. The crowd’s gonna be all: ‘look who just rolled in from Pico Rivera,’” Lasso wrote. “‘It’s Cristian Roldan.’ And someone else will be like ‘the premiere music capital for Mexican regional music in the country? And I’ll jump in with ‘Yup and this Pico Riveran’s about to dance all over the competition on the world’s biggest pitch.’ And they’ll all be like ‘Whoa.’ And I’ll give ’em a real cool, confident nod like ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ Pico for gold, Ted Lasso.”
This image released by Apple TV+ shows Jason Sudeikis in a scene from “Ted Lasso.” Sudeikis was nominated for an Emmy Award for best lead actor in a comedy series. (Colin Hutton/Apple TV+ via AP)
It appears to be going over well in the city.
“I heard about this and it’s great,” Pico Rivera Councilmember Andrew Lara said in a Tuesday, Nov. 15 telephone interview about the display for Roldan.
“We take pride in a hometown player,” Lara said. “We wish him the best. We’ll be following his success in the World Cup.”
Superintendent Marco Villegas of El Rancho Unified School District said Apple approached the district about doing the promotion and he said yes.
“It brings some distinction to the community in honoring him,” Villegas said. “He’s been a very active in the community. It’s unique and interesting. “
The Roldan family, including Cristian, who plays for the Major League Soccer Club Seattle Sounders and the U.S Soccer Team, gave $8,600 a year each over the next eight years for naming rights to a small soccer field, also called Futsal, on an outside asphalt court at Pico Park.
Aaron Long, too, has made his mark in his hometown, in part because of his improbable journey to stardom. Long, a star at Serrano High in Phelan and an all-Big West honoree at UC Riverside as a midfielder, had been drafted 36th overall by the Portland Timbers in the 2014 Super Draft but was released within six months without ever reaching the first team. He was picked up by the Red Bulls in 2016, assigned to their USL squad and told he was now a center back, a position he had never played. But he would improve greatly. By 2018, he was MLS Defender of the Year and an All-Star.
“He’s a success story. He’s incredible,” Red Bulls coach Chris Armas told the Riverside Press-Enterprise back in 2019. “He’s wired the right way as a person, and then you see from a soccer standpoint he’s not just a fast, athletic guy. He reads the game well, he’s comfortable with the ball.
Haji Wright grew up playing soccer in the backyard of his home with his younger brother in L.A. He would move on to play on youth national teams, and is a passionate Kobe Bryant fan. He signed his first professional contract with the New York Cosmos and ultimately to the national team, where he made his international debut as a halftime sub against Morocco on June 1, 2022, according to USA Soccer.
The campaign is being executed by Media Arts Lab on behalf of Apple TV, Michael Kammarman, spokesman for U.S. Soccer, said in a email on Tuesday.
From the U.S. Soccer perspective, we were contacted about the campaign and were happy to help facilitate as much as possible,” Kammarman wrote.
‘So far the players have been thrilled with the messages and appreciate that they have been posted in their hometowns,” he said. “We are proud to represent the United States, and also never forget where we came from.”
The messages, of course, aren’t just in Southern California.
They’ll appear across the U.S., in the hometowns of the team members and their coach, Gregg Berhalter (Chicago). And they won’t just be billboards and banners. Look for them in local newspapers, among other platforms.
The squad was announced on Nov. 9 and the messages started appearing almost immediately, in 24 cities, from Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Dallas, Nashville and New Jersey and New York, to Seattle, Chicago and San Diego.
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