Missing the World Cup? Ted Lasso Season 4 is here to give soccer fans their fix

The World Cup ended a few weeks ago. For plenty of fans, ordinary life still hasn’t quite recovered.

Across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, creators are posting nostalgic edits, empty stadiums and montages of the month that seemed to disappear almost as quickly as it arrived. In the comments, people are talking about missing the daily rhythm of matches, the crowds, the travel and even the strange feeling of having half the world watching the same thing at the same time.

Then, on Aug. 5, Ted Lasso returned.

Season 4 premiered on Apple TV just 17 days after the World Cup final, bringing Jason Sudeikis back as Ted for the show’s first new episodes in more than three years. This time, he returns to Richmond to coach a second-division women’s soccer team.

I watched the premiere as soon as it dropped. I’ve been a fan since the show first aired, but after spending more than a month immersed in the World Cup, the timing made this season feel different.

I wasn’t only thinking about Richmond. I kept thinking about the tournament — the fans who crossed North America following their teams, the friendships that formed along the way and the unexpected American hospitality that became one of the most surprising stories of the summer.

For anyone still missing the World Cup, Ted Lasso suddenly feels like a pretty good place to land.

The World Cup withdrawal is real

You don’t have to look far online to find people who aren’t ready to move on.

For more than a month, the World Cup gave fans something to organize their days around. There was always another match coming, another city packed with supporters or another viral moment appearing online before the previous one had faded.

Now the stadiums are empty and the schedule is gone.

That sense of loss makes more sense when you consider how far the tournament stretched beyond the actual games.

Fans crisscrossed North America following their teams, celebrated the Fourth of July alongside Americans and discovered cities and traditions they had never expected to encounter. Many left talking as much about the people they met as the matches they watched.

By the knockout rounds, supporters were also adopting other teams’ traditions. Norway’s Viking Row spread far beyond Norwegian supporters, while countless other chants, dances and fan rituals became part of the tournament’s shared language.

Then the final whistle blew, and all of it stopped.

That is the audience Ted Lasso Season 4 walked into.

Ted Lasso was already part of the World Cup

The timing isn’t entirely accidental.

Apple had been putting Ted Lasso in front of soccer fans before Season 4 even premiered. In July, Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt and other members of the cast appeared at a Ted Lasso event in Kansas City, one of the cities connected with the new season.

Then came the World Cup final.

Sudeikis and Hunt appeared in character as Ted Lasso and Coach Beard during the halftime show, bringing the fictional AFC Richmond world directly onto soccer’s biggest stage.

At the time, it was a fun crossover. In hindsight, it also worked as a handoff.

The World Cup was ending. Less than three weeks later, Ted Lasso would be back.

And for viewers who had spent the summer surrounded by soccer, the transition was unusually easy.

One Ted Lasso speech hits differently after this World Cup

Ted Lasso has always used soccer as the setting for something bigger. The wins and losses matter, but the show is much more interested in belonging, optimism and what happens when a group of very different people suddenly starts caring about the same thing.

After this World Cup, those themes feel less theoretical.

For weeks, social media was filled with strangers celebrating together, fans being invited into homes and onto boats, supporters learning one another’s chants and people traveling thousands of miles only to end up talking about the friendships they made.

That’s why edits combining Ted Lasso speeches with World Cup footage work so well right now.

Separated from the tournament, Rebecca’s words are part of a television show.

Layered over footage of the World Cup that just ended, they become something else: a reminder of why so many people are having such a hard time letting the month go.

Ted Lasso Season 4 isn’t simply repeating the old formula

There was an obvious question hanging over Season 4 before it premiered: Did Ted Lasso really need to come back?

Season 3 seemed to give the series a natural ending, and even some early reviews of the new season have wrestled with whether there was more story worth telling. Variety described the new direction as working best when viewed almost as a reboot rather than simply a continuation.

I wondered the same thing.

But the premiere makes clear fairly quickly that Season 4 isn’t simply sending Ted back to coach the same AFC Richmond men’s team again.

Instead, he returns to Richmond to take charge of a second-division women’s team, giving the show a new group, a new challenge and a reason to start building something again.

That distinction matters more than I expected.

Coming off the World Cup, I didn’t particularly need another fictional soccer season. What pulled me back in was the part of Ted Lasso that had suddenly become very familiar: watching a group of people come together around the sport and seeing what happens next.

Where to watch Ted Lasso Season 4

Ted Lasso Season 4 premiered Aug. 5 exclusively on Apple TV. The season includes 10 episodes, with a new episode arriving every Wednesday through Oct. 7.

The first three seasons are also available on Apple TV for anyone who wants to start from the beginning or catch up before watching the new episodes.

For World Cup fans who still haven’t figured out what to do with their Wednesday nights, the timing couldn’t be better.