You don’t have to like football to love Ted Lasso, the series that humanizes sport

Let’s start with a confession: I am not a footballer. It’s not a sport that I follow, I don’t watch matches and I don’t know this world well. So when I was recommended a series about a football coach, I went backwards. However, this series finally grabbed me and even upset me. I was moved, I laughed, I watched the episodes.

And this series is Ted Lasso. This character is a coach in an American football team in the United States. Until the day when, to change his life, he is hired by an English club, to lead a football team — soccer –, a totally different version of the football he knows. He’s going to have a hard time being accepted. It’s an Apple TV+ series.

Why does Ted Lasso stand out?

You should know that this character, Ted Lasso, has a very striking characteristic that can be summarized as follows: he is the kindest man in the world. He is unfailingly optimistic, he always takes everything well. His way of coaching his team is immersed in this atmosphere: he tries to improve the life and well-being of each member of the football team (even for his boss: every morning, for example, he arrives at the stadium with a new homemade pastry). The key word of his coaching: kindness.

So we laugh a lot in front Ted Lasso, but we cry, too. Because this constant optimism hides a lot of pain and complexity. In terms of mental health, it’s very powerful: I never imagined seeing panic attacks so well represented in a series about football.

Thinking about sport differently

Actually, Ted Lasso, it’s a life lesson. Because it puts people at the heart of sporting competition. Finally, in this series, football is a vector of emotions, a catalyst, the football stadium is a sort of theater stage for desires, fears, loves, friendships. Looking at Ted Lasso, we are involved with men and women, more than for a score. In short, it’s tenderness before data… and it feels good.

Olympic Games, Rugby…: How data is transforming high-level sport

In this first show of season 3, The best of worlds explores how data and technology are changing sporting practices. François Saltiel receives:

• Yannick Nyanga Racing 92 Hopes Coach and former international rugby player
• Aurélie Jean Doctor of science and entrepreneur, specialist in algorithms
• Nicolas Benguigui Teacher-Researcher in STAPS in the field of cognitive sciences and digital sciences at the GREYC laboratory at the University of Caen Basse-Normandie
• Chloé Gobé Data scientist at INSEP

A podcast to find on the Radio France website and on all listening platforms.

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