Characters / Ted Lasso

Warning: As a character page, all spoilers are unmarked!

Main Characters

Ted Lasso

Played by: Jason Sudeikis

Ted is an American football coach who is recruited to be the manager of a Premier League soccer team AFC Richmond, despite having no experience with Association Football whatsoever. He turns out to be far from just another bumbling foreigner, but what's even more disarming is his ridiculous niceness, and he slowly earns the love and admiration of his new team.

The character originated in a series of skits for NBC Sports.

---

• Adaptational Intelligence: He's much smarter and more perceptive than the character in the advertisements on which the show is based, who's more boorish and ignorant.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The Ted we see in the original advertisements is much more of a stereotypically obnoxious American, but in the show itself, he stands out as an incredibly kind-hearted individual. invokedWord of God has it that this was deliberately done to keep Ted from becoming an image of Drumpf-style belligerence.
• Adaptational Personality Change: In the original advertisements, Ted was a stereotypical boorish American who frequently yells at people and isn't very intelligent. In the series, while he's still a Fish out of Water who is ignorant about soccer, he's also a friendly guy who is pretty good at reading people and learns very quickly.
• All-Loving Hero: Tries to see the good in everyone, so he treats all those around him with unfailing kindness.
• Americans Are Cowboys: Invoked. Like Ted, Jason Sudeikis is from Kansas, but he does not speak with Ted's southern drawl. Sudeikis has said this was intentional to invoke this trope. Sassy later often refers to him as Marlboro Man.
• Berserk Button: Ted doesn't mind if his players lose, but he does mind if they quit. It also ties into some of his issues with his father's suicide as Ted feels that the man effectively quit on their family by taking his own life.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • The few times he snaps in the aftermath of his divorce prove to be terrifying and leave others stunned in surprise.
  • Ted is not completely unaware that many assume he is naïve because of his friendly and mild demeanour. He isn't above using that to his advantage as seen in his darts game with Rupert.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Can be quite a goof, but he manages to be an excellent coach despite this.
• Consistent Clothing Style: Pretty much always wears khakis, sneakers, and a sweater over a collared shirt.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of The Pollyanna. Ted is so relentlessly optimistic and generous with his love for others that he barely takes care of his own issues, thinking that all the love and cheerfulness will bear him through any problem. In Season 1, he casually mentions that his wife Michelle found his constant positivity overbearing, and it's part of the reason why they end up getting a divorce later on. Season 2 is about Ted acknowledging the fact that some of those issues don't get fixed through positive thinking. Ted learns that he needs to be a little selfish and vent some of his negative emotions, not just so that he can become healthier, but so that he can be a better friend and coach. Season 3 shows Ted that is okay to be justifiably angry, and admit to being as such rather than deflecting as he did at the start of the season.
  Ted: Thank you, mom, but fuck you. Thank you for always being there for me, but fuck you for making me think I had to be okay when dad killed himself. Why the fuck are you here, mom?
• Disappeared Dad: Ted's father committed suicide when he was 16-years-old. As a result of fleeing to England when his marriage falls apart, Ted becomes this to his own son, Henry, as well, a fact he's well aware and ashamed of.
• Does Not Like Spam: Ted is aware that drinking tea is a big part of English culture, but he just can't bring himself to enjoy it. He also has a severe response to being surprised with soda water.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Played with; normally he's decidedly not this trope, since he's established early on as A Father to His Men who aims to turn his players into better people through encouragement and positivity. However, he has a meaner alter ego named "Led Tasso" that invokes this, which Beard says he only takes on as a last resort; in "Do The Right-est Thing", Ted becomes "Led Tasso" as part of a Genghis Gambit to reunify the team after Jamie returns.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He is completely heartbroken when he learns from Trent Crimm that Nate betrayed Ted's confidence and told Trent about his secret panic attacks.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: In sharp contrast to his usual positivity, Ted dislikes Rupert Mannion from the start and instantly sees through his fake charm.
• A Father to His Men: His stated objective is to turn his players into better people. To do so, he constantly tries to impart life lessons and instill optimism within the team and slowly, but surely, gets through to many players. However, one of Ted's character development lessons is to realize that the Richmond players are not college students, but professional athletes with goals and needs that have to be treated differently than his old college football team back in the states.
• Foot-Dragging Divorcee: Downplayed. Ted doesn't refuse to sign the paperwork, but he does procrastinate signing it for a couple of days until he feels ready. Part of the delay is also due to Ted living in another country and not having access to a fax machine, meaning he can't send in the paperwork anyway until Michelle's lawyer tells him he can scan it.
• Friends with Benefits: Had a one-night stand with Sassy, and while initially weirded out about the new experience, he's heavily implied to have casual sex with her again sometime later. He later tries to upgrade to a more conventional relationship (mostly because he'd recently found out his ex-wife was dating someone), but she turns him down, pointing out he is seriously fucked up from his divorce and needs time to get his head on straight.
• Freudian Excuse: His Stepford Smiler tendencies stem from his father's suicide when he was a teenager. It certainly wasn't helped by his mother deciding to adopt a similar attitude in light of the tragedy and carry on without properly addressing it with Ted.
• Funny Foreigner: Ted's frequently humorously perplexed by the differences between Britain and America. For one thing, Ted doesn't get the English obsession with tea, not the least of which because he really doesn't like it.
• Fun Personified: Usually in a good mood, and all too happy to put everyone else in one too. It's genuinely shocking when he turns off the fun and gets nasty.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Ted himself lampshades how people always assume that his unfailing kindness, generosity, and positivity mean he's stupid and naïve, leading people to seriously underestimate him.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: He is the only character in the series who doesn't use profanity. It's not until the first season finale that he lets a single Precision F-Strike fly.
• The Heart: His presence helps the rest of the cast grow as people and form genuine bonds with each other by Ted being genuinely nice, cheerful, and optimistic.
• Heartbroken Badass: An excellent coach and mentor, he's also struggling with a collapsing marriage, even after it's over.
• Hidden Depths: The essence of his character is the contrast between his "country bumpkin" appearance and his other talents. He proves to be an avid reader and is able to parse the thematic ideas of different texts. He can bake a phenomenal batch of shortbread cookies for Rebecca. He shocks an entire pub when he reveals that he's an expert darts player who can nail the exact shots he needs to win. He also knows a lot about brain injuries from his time in American football. He's also one of the few people to see through Rupert's false charm and takes an instant dislike to him as a result. That, and he's secretly quite upset over his divorce and subsequent panic attacks.
• Humble Hero: Doesn't care much for glory, he just wants to help make everyone around him into the best people they can be.
• Hypocrite: One of his stated philosophies is that people should be curious and not judgemental. However, little character beats peppered throughout the series show that he isn't always curious and often judgemental. Despite being a soccer coach in Britain for a number of years, he remains clueless about the sport and a lot of the local culture. If someone points out a soccer fact or highlights the difference between American and British cultures, he'll brush them off with a joke or a comment about how strange things are to him.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Lures Rupert into a wager on a game of darts by not performing very well... until he reveals that he is left-handed (and was using his right hand to start with).
• In-Series Nickname: Called "Wanker" by the AFC Richmond fans, even as he starts to get some wins.
• Intergenerational Friendship: He becomes fast friends with Shannon, a secondary school girl from the neighbourhood. She shows him a thing or two about football and even comes out on a cold rainy night to look after his son so that he and his wife can have a heart-to-heart.
• Like a Son to Me: Averted. Even though Ted is A Father to His Men, he doesn't really develop this relationship with any of the players, and his emotional focus remains on his son back in Kansas. Subverted with Nate, who wants this relationship and sees it as a betrayal when Ted's focus on his family and mental health issues take his focus away from Nate.
• Loved by All: Everybody Ted meets, no matter how surly or vicious they may be, will initially be confused by his cheerful disposition, but slowly come around to deeply admire him. By the end of Season 2, the only characters who have a problem with him are Rupert (for humiliating him in public and supporting Rebecca), George Cartrick (for taking his job), and Nate (who's deluded himself into thinking Ted mistreated him).
• Minnesota Nice: Ted's earthy, aw-shucks brand of Kansas politeness and kindness are a stark contrast and breath of fresh air to the dry-witted English football club that hires him.
• Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Ted repeatedly reassures his players, the media, and everyone else that he doesn't care whether the team wins or loses as long as they play their best and he can have a positive impact on them. Near the end of season one Coach Beard points out that while the philosophy is fine with student athletes who will move on to something other than football in a few years, it fails with a professional club like AFC Richmond where winning DOES matter. If the team can't start winning, the clubs future is in question as they get relegated, Ted will likely get fired which means anything they build is lost, and the players livelihoods and future prospects are directly harmed.
• Nice Guy: Ted has an enormous heart, caring deeply for those around him, even when they treat him like dirt. While also helped by being a better coach than he initially seems to be, his great kindness is a major reason why he wins over his many naysayers throughout the show.
• Nice to the Waiter: Part of his Nice Guy persona, Ted makes it a point to know the names and personal details of all of Richmond's employees as well as all of the reporters on the team's beat.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Ted is the first person at the club to acknowledge Nate and makes a point of praising his knowledge and promotes him from a bullied kit manager to a key part of his coaching team. However, this results in Nate developing a massively-oversized ego and generally becoming a massive jerk who has no issue selling Ted out to advance his own career.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Ted's well aware that his positive personality makes him seem naive to others and he's willing to use that to get a leg up when he wants to, such as his darts game with Rupert in the first season.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: He spends much of the first season being nothing but a really nice guy and good friend to Rebecca, who is actually trying to humiliate and use him to destroy the club. She eventually fesses up that she brought him in to ruin the team, but it's resulted in a Reassignment Backfire. He forgives her on the spot.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Becomes close with Rebecca, even though her prim and proper manner is quite different from Ted's hyperactive personality.
  • Ted's as chipper as they come and Roy is almost always grumpy, and yet they manage to become buddies.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: It is very rare that you get to see Ted get angry. But when he does get angry, it's terrifying.
  • He usually takes a very fatherly approach to coaching and tries to subtly correct bad behavior. However, when Jamie tries to get out of practice by pretending to be injured, this proves to be the last straw for Ted. Ted delivers a very angry rant to Jamie about how refusing to practice with his teammates means he's being selfish, demotes him to the reserve team on the spot, and orders him to set up the cones on the pitch. This ultimately breaks any hold Jamie still had over the rest of AFC Richmond.
  • When finally getting therapy and being forced to confront his personal problems, Ted is noticeably short-tempered and irritable, which is very unlike him, as he usually lets the worst insults and humiliation roll off his back.
  • He sees through Rupert Mannion's false charm instantly. As a result, Ted makes little effort to hide his dislike of Rupert, a striking contrast to his usual cheeriness and efforts to win over those he meets. In short, Ted sees the best in everyone. He doesn't see anything in Rupert.
• Parental Substitute: Nate - whose father is emotionally distant at best - starts to think of Ted this way. Unfortunately, the combination of his preexisting daddy issues, growing emotional instability, and Ted being unable to give Nate the amount of attention he wants because of his other responsibilities causes him to turn on Ted. Tellingly, when Ted confronts him about this, Nate seems to be somewhat jealous of Ted's actual son.
• Positive Friend Influence: Ted's optimism and kindness rub off on the characters and it results in several of them changing for the better such as Rebecca becoming friendlier and Jamie being less selfish. Sadly, him helping Nate presumably gain more confidence turns out to be for the worse.
• The Pollyanna: He refuses to let anything get him down and tries to pep up everyone around him. Season 2 starts deconstructing this and showing the unhealthy side of relentless positivity, though it also reconstructs it by showing Ted working through these issues to become an even better person.
• Precision F-Strike: He normally abstains from swearing, making his very occasional use of profanity all the more shocking.
• Pungeon Master: Ted loves wordplay and jokes, which Coach Beard is able to keep up with, but completely throws off people who are just meeting him.
  Ted: If I were to get fired from my job where I'm puttin' cleats in the trunk of my car.
  Coach Beard: You got the boot from puttin' boots in the boot.
• Real Men Cook: He enjoys baking biscuits in his spare time, and is very good at it too. Rebecca seems quite surprised how good his biscuits are in particular.
• Sad Clown: He provides much of the series' humor with his near-constant quips and pop culture references, but it's soon revealed that his cheerful demeanor hides a lot of trauma. Sharon correctly deduces that Ted uses jokes and references to avoid opening up about his problems.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: A gender-flipped, non-romantic example. Ted is upbeat and hyperactive as a schoolboy whilst Rebecca is prim and cool-headed.
• Separated by a Common Language: He's frequently confused by British words and phrases, and it goes both ways when his Midwestern idioms fly over the team's heads.
  Ted: Alright, nobody here's gonna kiss their sister. [the team reacts in confusion] ...Which is an American phrase I'm just now realizing does not exist here.
• Sex God: According to his one-night-stand and Rebecca's best friend Sassy, his cheerfully forthcoming nature translates to the bedroom extremely well.
  Sassy: So eager to please.
• Stealth Mentor: Trent Crimm describes his coaching style as being subtle, and never hitting people over the head. When his players expect to be reprimanded for bad behaviour, Ted will come in with positive reinforcement instead to gently coax good behaviour. If the bad behaviour persists, he'll quietly encourage other players to step up and correct the behaviour organically.
• Stepford Smiler: The series occasionally shows that Ted's cheerfulness is masking a deep depression, resulting in debilitating panic attacks when his issues overwhelm his defences. Season 2 delves deeper into this, especially when it's revealed that his issues mainly stem from his father committing suicide when he was 16.
• Sweet Baker: He likes to sweeten his relationships with friends and co-workers with homemade biscuits.
• Tastes Like Friendship: Ted tries to ingratiate himself with Rebecca by bringing her a box of biscuits daily ("Biscuits with the Boss"). It's a resounding success.
• Those Two Guys: He and Beard have a relationship going back decades to when they were on the special teams in college football. Ted's faith and trust in Beard after the latter's imprisonment for drug crimes is what led to Beard's Undying Loyalty to Ted in return.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Season 3, Ted finally starts to take steps to improve his knowledge of association football and use what he knows from other sports to improve the team's fortunes. It culminates in him coming up with the idea of implementing a Total Football strategy all on his own.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Ted's preferred method to deal with people mistreating him is to just let it go and move on with his usual positivity. While it's usually portrayed as a good thing, Season 3 explores whether this methodology is really an effective way for Ted to deal with his more negative life experiences and if his actions are less "taking the high road" and more "being an Extreme Doormat to the perpetrators".
• Trauma Button: He's highly sensitive to scenes of fathers abandoning or abusing their sons. This makes his separation from his own son, as well as watching Jamie's interaction with his father, particularly hard. Eventually, it turns out that this at least partially stems from his own father committing suicide when he was 16.
• "Ugly American" Stereotype: Subverted. Ted is pretty ignorant about England and its culture, but he's eager to learn and embraces the country's traditions with great enthusiasm despite his confusion (though he doesn't accept all British culture unconditionally; he absolutely despises tea, coming up with new insults for it at every chance he gets and is completely bewildered that the country loves it). According to Rebecca's taste, he even bakes better British shortbread than the British.
• Wrong Line of Work: Played With. Ted was an American football coach before arriving at AFC Richmond, and is the first person to acknowledge he knows very little about association football. He still struggles to catch on to the finer points of the beautiful game even after over a year after being the team's manager. However, because he recognizes the gaps in his knowledge, he's able to build a solid coaching staff to help fill in those areas while Ted himself focuses on building a good team culture. By the end of Season 2, he's able to bring the team back into the Premier League after getting relegated in his first season, while also leading the team to their best ever placement in The FA Cup. In Season 3, it's shown he's putting in far more effort into understanding football, and through his love of watching basketball of all things, is able to almost completely replicate the Total Football strategy from scratch just from applying concepts from Phil Jackson's Triangle Offense used by the legendary 90s Chicago Bulls team. By the end of the Season and the Series (or his time in the series if it ends up continuing without him) he is arguably one of the top Association Football coaches in the world.

Rebecca Welton

Played by: Hannah Waddingham

Owner of AFC Richmond after an acrimonious divorce from her terrible ex-husband, Rupert.

---

• Acquainted in Real Life: She develops a loving texting correspondence with an anonymous Bantr match. In 2x06 he turns out to be Sam.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ted calls her "Boss". Her childhood friend Flo calls her "Stinky", which started out as an insult but has clearly become more affectionate in the present day.
• Age-Gap Romance: Her ex-husband Rupert is 20 years older than she. After her divorce, she has started to take considerably younger flings. Later, unbeknownst to her, she enters a flirty texting correspondence with 21-year-old Sam, which, after initial reservations, turns physical. Unlike with Rupert, Rebecca's relationship with Sam is much healthier and based on genuine affection, despite its briefness.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Mentions buying a horse in “Mom City”
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: While money matters are occsionally discussed, like when Richmond is relegated, generally speaking Rebecca is wealthy enough that money is never a meaningful issue. When Keeley's PR firm has its venture capital funding cut and Keely is nervous to ask such a large sum from her friend, Rebecca jokes that she has that amount on her in cash already. She also says that she'd make Ted the highest-paid manager in the Premier League if he agrees to stay another season^note This would have to top the salary of Pep Guardiola, who made £19 million the 2022-2023 season.
• The Atoner: After her Heel Realization, Rebecca decides to not only run the team properly, but also keep Ted onboard as manager (even though he offered to resign following Richmond's relegation) both because of his kindness and so he can prove the skeptics wrong.
• Badass Longcoat: Rebecca almost always wears knee-length coats in warm, comfortable "this is a hug" patterns or textures. houndstooth and felt, like a boss.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: In "Make Rebecca Great Again", her friend Sassy reveals that she has a beautiful singing voice and used to sing all the time before she stopped during her stifling marriage to Rupert. She later wows everyone at karaoke when she sings "Let It Go".
• Childhood Friends: She's been best friends with Sassy since year 7 (the British equivalent of sixth grade in North America).
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Her story arc across Season 1 shows her opening up and becoming friendlier to those around her and allowing herself to be vulnerable again. This is her getting back to the way she used to be before her marriage to Rupert; her best friend Sassy whom she'd fallen out of touch with tells Keeley that the real Rebecca is a fun person, not cold.
• Deuteragonist: Rebecca's initial plot is what starts the story and she's second only to Ted in terms of character development and prominence.
• Domestic Abuse: Though Sassy says Rebecca also played a role in her isolation during her marriage to Rupert, the fact is that that's one of the tactics of abusers to force their victim to rely on them. We also see his casual cruelty throughout the first three seasons, and a repeat of this isolation tactic on Nate at West Ham.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Ted immediately forgives her after she admits to using him to try to destroy the club, as he understands from his own experience that divorce makes you do crazy things.
  • Downplayed with Sassy and Nora. While they quickly forgive her for not speaking to them for six years, Sassy tells her that she needs to own up to her actions, and Nora ribs Rebecca about abandoning her.
• Embarrassing Nickname:
  • "Old Rebecca," a cruel variation used by the sexist British press when her ex-husband starts dating a much younger woman also named Rebecca.
  • Her best friend Flo ("Sassy") dubbed her "Stinky" when they were young to downplay how rich and attractive Rebecca was. Fortunately, by the present day, it's purely affectionate.
• Establishing Character Moment: The opening scene, featuring Rebecca's scathing dismissal of Richmond's long-time manager, establishes her as a no-nonsense businesswoman who doesn't suffer fools gladly.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Keeley often expresses attraction to Rebecca.
• Heel–Face Turn: When she comes to realizes that her desire for revenge against her ex-husband will harm everyone who works for and loves the team.
• Heel Realization: When Rupert tells her that Bex is pregnant, she realizes that he still continues to hurt her and sabotaging Richmond has not helped her feel better or hurt Rupert at all. All she's really done is screw over the fans, the players, and Ted.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: The popular image of Rebecca, thanks to the sexist tabloids and sports press, is that she's a wet blanket shrew who stole AFC Richmond from Rupert in their divorce settlement and has no business running the club. The truth is she's just heartbroken by her ex-husband's infidelity, legitimately got the club in the divorce settlement and is a savvy businesswoman when she gives it an honest effort.
• History with Celebrity: As evidence of how Rebecca runs in very posh circles, she says she is an annual attendee of Elton John's Christmas parties ^note  the mention of Elton John is a subtle Shout-Out in and of itself, as he famously owned a football club, Watford, for many years .
• Intergenerational Friendship: She's at least a decade older than Keeley, but they quickly become close friends.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While firing George Cartrick was part of her plan to sabotage the team, her criticisms about his sexist attitude and performance as a manager were entirely valid. Even Roy agrees with her assessment that Cartrick was a terrible manager.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In Season 1, even when she's out to destroy AFC Richmond, she drops everything to genuinely help Ted when he suffers a debilitating panic attack. Season 2 sees her almost entirely drop the "jerk" aspect of her personality, aside from instances where she has to deal with jerks and pays their treatment of her in kind.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: She didn't have a child while married to Rupert, because he didn't want children. Then he has a child with Bex partly as a way to punish Rebecca. Then her mum's psychic says she'll have a child, which she points out is a cruel thing to say to a stranger at her age, when she may no longer be able to have children. Then she goes to the doctor to see if maybe she could, and while we don't hear what her doctor tells her it's obvious it's not what she was hoping for.
• The Maiden Name Debate: Inverted. Rebecca apparently took Rupert's name when they married (since Higgins mistakenly addresses her as "Mrs. Mannion") but has since reverted back to "Welton".
• Mean Boss: Initially played straight through her treatment of Higgins and downplayed after she apologizes to him. She is much nicer, but still disparages him much more than she does her other subordinates, like Keeley or Ted.
• The Mistress: It's stated that she was once this to Rupert, as she mentions to Keeley how she first met him when he was still with his previous wife.
• Non-Idle Rich: She's very well off, but "Carol of the Bells" reveals that she likes to spend Christmas doing charity work, dressing as an elf and delivering gifts to underprivileged children in Richmond (though she mentions that she stopped doing it for a few years after marrying Rupert).
• Not So Above It All:
  • One of the first cues that she's not the manipulative schemer she's trying to be is her furious insistence that a lion is better than a panda.
  • As loathe as she is to admit it (at first), she absolutely loves the biscuits Ted brings her each morning.
  • Even though it rankles her image as a professional woman, she is flattered at Keeley's genuine adoration of her breasts seen in the topless photo the press took of her.
• Not So Stoic: It gradually becomes clear Rebecca is barely holding things together and many of her worst actions are her way of lashing out at the world around her.
• Revenge Before Reason: The whole reason she hired Ted in the first place was to hurt Richmond and ruin the one thing her ex-husband loves as revenge for his infidelity and abuse during their marriage. She doesn't take into account all of the other people who she's hurting in the process. After she sees that her plan has had absolutely no effect on Rupert, she realizes this and apologizes.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: A gender-flipped, non-romantic example. Rebecca is prim and proper, and cool-headed whilst Ted is upbeat and hyperactive as a schoolboy.
• Schemer: At least at the beginning. She manipulates circumstances behind the scenes to try and sabotage the club.
• Sleeping with the Boss: An unintentional example. She has an affair with Sam, who is technically her employee; however, they met on an anonymous dating app and got to know each other without their power imbalance getting in the way, and they amicably break up after only a few weeks.
• Statuesque Stunner: She's 5 feet and 10 inches in bare feet, and her Louboutins make her taller than most of the male characters. She's also considered extremely attractive by other characters and has no trouble finding dates or hookups.
  Keeley: That Rebecca is an intimidating and very tall woman. I mean, the minute she locked eyes with me, I started sweating.
• The Stoic: Incredibly poised and quick-witted, Rebecca tends to deflect hurtful comments about (and from) Rupert.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Over the course of the first season, Rebecca ultimately realizes her plan to sabotage the team was both wrong and misguided. She then decides to do her job properly and help Ted make the team a winner.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Ted's biscuits. She loves Ted's biscuits, going as far as to make Higgins visit half a dozen bakeries in search of their origin (before learning Ted makes them himself) and finishing Sharon's half-eaten biscuit without hesitation.
• Uncle Pennybags: She's quite happy to provide extravagant gifts and expensive meals to those she cares about, like Keeley and Florence. On Christmas, she hands out presents to families in financial difficulties and is seen giving a large stack of cash to buskers simply because she can. Also, when Keeley's company loses funding, she takes a look at the operating budget doesn't hesitate to step in as financial backer, quipping she has that amount in cash on her person.

Leslie Higgins

Played by: Jeremy Swift

The team's Director of Operations and Rebecca's right-hand man, the only one who knows that she's trying to bring Richmond down.

---

• The Atoner: His loyalty to Rebecca and his assistance in her schemes is because he feels guilty over the years he spent hiding Rupert's affairs from her.
• Beleaguered Assistant: He starts out as this in Season 1, as Rebecca resents how he hid Rupert's numerous affairs from her (though this was largely because he was too meek to stand up to Rupert) and will either force him to go along with her plans to sabotage the club or do "work that doesn't matter". This becomes more downplayed in subsequent seasons; while Rebecca still sometimes makes disparaging comments towards Higgins, she's become a nicer boss to him after she realized her treatment of him was a Disproportionate Retribution and they make amends with each other.
• Butt-Monkey: Gets constantly bossed around by, well, his boss Rebecca, but their relationship eventually improves after Rebecca makes amends with him. Even then, he's still on the receiving end of several mishaps, such as constantly having to move between work spaces in Season 2 and spilling hot tea all over himself when Isaac's corner kick breaks his office window in "The Strings That Bind Us".
• Character Tics: Higgins gags whenever he feels guilty (as when Rebecca is blackmailing him into helping her in the early part of season 1) or uncomfortable (as he is about Beard and Jane's weirdly toxic relationship in season 2).
• Expository Hairstyle Change: When he briefly quits, Rebecca finds him at home with his hair hanging limp and having grown a Van Dyke. He claims it illustrates how "chill" he is, but his wife despises it.
• Family Man: Has a wife, five sons, three dogs, and an elderly cat named Cindy Clawford (now deceased) at home.
• Gender-Blender Name: While "Leslie" isn't an exclusively female name, he admits to being named after his mother. His sons all have names that are similarly unisex or more often used for girls: Terry, Kris, Dana, Stevie, and Lindsay.
• Grew a Spine: After years of hiding Rupert's numerous affairs (despite not wanting to) and going along with Rebecca's schemes, he eventually stands up for himself and confronts Rebecca for the harm she is doing.
• Happily Married: Glimpses at his home life show he and his wife continue to be very much in love after more than 20 years of marriage and having five children. Notably, he's the only one of the main cast who's in a stable relationship that stays consistently stable throughout the whole series. His ringtone for his wife is "She's a Rainbow" by The Rolling Stones, and it's not ironic; she really is his rainbow. Rebecca notes it's kind of on the nose, but loves it.
• Heel–Face Turn: While never a bad guy, he still helped Rupert and Rebecca despite their immoral actions. He was never able to stand up to Rupert, but his conscience finally wins out and he quits on Rebecca, only coming back when she reforms.
• Hidden Depths:
  • While he starts out as nothing more than a cowardly lackey who lets most people walk all over him, he often proves to be the single most mature person in the room, particularly when it comes to relationships. It's telling that he's the only main character on the show in a successful marriage.
  • He plays upright bass and Rebecca witnesses him playing along to jazz in "All Apologies". "Sunflowers" reveals that he's a jazz aficionado in general, being an especially big fan of American jazz musician Chet Baker. He spends the evening sharing his love of jazz with Will, much to the latter's delight.
• Last-Name Basis: Throughout the first season, he is only known as "Higgins". It's not until episode 10 of season 1 that Rebecca calls him by his first name, Leslie.
• Minion with an F in Evil: When Rebecca is trying to sabotage Ted and the club, Higgins does what he can to carry out her wishes due to his guilt over hiding Rupert's affairs from her. However, he is too kind and loves the club too much to give her plan his full support. Instead, he socializes with the players and quickly becomes one of Ted's trusted "Diamond Dogs".
• My Greatest Failure: While he only comments on it once, he admits to Rebecca that he knows he deserves to carry the guilt of hiding Rupert's affairs from her for the rest of his life. It's also implied that one of the reasons he aids Rebecca's schemes in Season 1 is out of that guilt.
• Nice Guy: Very polite and kind to everyone. The only bad thing you can really say about him is that he stood by and assisted Rupert and Rebecca's bad actions, but he feels terrible about both, only doing so because he's too meek to object.
• Only in It for the Money: The main reason why he goes along with Rebecca's Season 1 scheme is because she offered him a promotion and a raise.
• Running Gag: During the second season, he's seen repeatedly trying out new possible working spaces after Sharon takes over his office. In the season finale, Sharon has left, but he is yet again forced out of the office so that the carpet can be replaced after several greyhound puppies crap all over it.
• Sustained Misunderstanding:
  • When Jamie comes to him in "Man City" to get tickets for his father for the match at Wembley. Higgins ignores every one of Jamie's cues that scream that Mr. Tartt is a jerk not worthy of respect, and instead delivers a homily about the importance of father-son relationships, which clearly makes Jamie uncomfortable.
  • In the season 2 finale, Keeley comes to him to get advice (mainly because no one else is available) about how best to break it to Rebecca that she'll be leaving AFC Richmond to start her own PR firm. And Higgins, who is so excited to be consulted, misinterprets why Keeley needs advice not once, not twice, but three times. He finally manages to redeem himself by offering a really good piece of advice that shows that despite his poor listening skills he is a very kind and thoughtful person.
    Higgins: Keeley, a good mentor hopes you will move on. A great mentor knows you will.
    Keeley: Wow. That's really good!
    Higgins: You like that? I just made it up.
• This Is Your Song: "She's a Rainbow" by The Rolling Stones is his and his wife's song. It's also his ringtone for her and he means it. She's his rainbow.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He is actually the person in the club who has known Rebecca the longest. Despite a lot of initial misgivings due to Higgins enabling her abuse by her ex-husband, the two of them are now close friends, and they confide quite a lot with each other.
• We Used to Be Friends: While he initially seems to be a Beleaguered Assistant (and in many ways is), it eventually becomes clear that Rebecca did used to like Higgins... before discovering that he helped Rupert hide his affairs. Her treatment of him is a direct result of her own feelings of betrayal. They eventually become friends again after Rebecca realizes her treatment of Higgins was a Disproportionate Retribution and she goes to apologize to him.

Jamie Tartt

Played by: Phil Dunster

Jamie Tartt doo doo doo do-do-do...

Richmond's star striker, whose skill is eclipsed by his ego.

---

• 10-Minute Retirement: Quits football in season 2 to take part in a reality TV show called Lust Conquers All, but ends up rejoining Richmond after being eliminated.
• Abusive Parents: His dad is absolutely horrible to him, constantly insulting him, demeaning him, and treating him like dirt while expecting absolute deference, respect, and all the perks of being family of a pro athlete. To top it all off, he is physically abusive to Jamie as well, throwing a shoe at his head after a game and clearly intending to hit back when Jamie punches him in the face. A brief interaction with him is enough to turn the normally cocky Jamie into a complete wreck.
• The Ace: He and Dani are explicitly named as Richmond's "two aces" by Higgins and Ted.
• Amicable Exes: With Keeley in Season 2. Even though they're no longer together, Jamie will still seek out her advice and Keeley will advise him as best she can.
• Attention Whore: In the first season, he's this on and off the field. Eventually, he grows out of it.
• Book Dumb: He often displays a lack of general knowledge and a disinterest in culture, and he's prone to making Malapropers whenever he tries to sound smart. When Keeley was still dating him, she actually made him visit plays and read books.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Starts to undergo one in "Two Aces" after his attempt to power-play Ted backfires, breaking his influence over the other players, and he realizes that Dani is just as talented as him. Unfortunately, it's cut short by Rebecca sending him back to Manchester City.
  • Goes through one at the beginning of season 2 after he's voted off the reality show he was starring in and learns no team wants to sign him following his quitting Manchester City.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: While dedicated to his training with the team, Season 3 shows that Jamie was unable to reach his full potential because he didn't put in the extra time outside of training sessions that would get him to that superstar level. Once Roy starts his extra sessions so he can get better, he becomes a star not just for Richmond, but the entire Premier League.
• Broken Pedestal: In Season 1, he and Roy can't stand each other, largely due to Jamie's arrogant demeanour and Roy's complete disgust with it. But Jamie also admits that he idolized Roy when he was a kid and finally got to play alongside his hero only to be disappointed at meeting Roy as a bitter older man rather than a passionate star.
• The Bully: In Season 1, he uses his power and influence on the team to treat others horribly, most notably Nate. Thankfully, he stops in Season 2.
• Calling the Old Man Out: When James Tartt comes by the locker room to gloat about the Man City victory, he repeatedly shits on Jamie until the latter quietly says "Don't talk to me like that.". Then, when Tartt Sr. tries to elevate the abuse to physical, Jamie clocks him before Beard drags him away.
• Character Development: And how!
  • He starts out the series as a preening egomaniac who hogs the ball and spotlight on the pitch. The first indication that he's starting to change is when he makes an extra pass in the Season 1 finale and giving a goal opportunity to a teammate.
  • In Season 2, he goes through a Humiliation Conga and becomes a team player, only to have to re-learn how to be a prick on the pitch and find out how to balance kindness and obnoxious assertiveness.
  • By Season 3, he's become part of the emotional and leadership core of the team and is now the one who tries to cheer everyone else up when his teammates feel glum about Richmond's prospects for the season and lends the coaching staff thoughts on tactics from the players' perspective.
  • Back in Season 1 he’s very happy to sexually objectify Keeley in front of the rest of the team. By Season 3 he makes a point of telling the Greyhounds that they should be more respectful with the nudes sent to them by their girlfriends and groupies to ensure innocent women don’t get hurt. This one is a bit of a Zigzagged Trope however, since later in the episode Jamie makes it a point to state that even back when he was a Jerkass he would often delete these types of videos and photos, knowing that something like this could happen. While he did objectify Keeley, it was at least from an official photo shoot and she didn't seem to mind all that much. The main difference now is that he has a lot more decorum in how to advise the rest of the team on how to deal with this due to his overall maturity growing.
• Cursed with Awesome: As pointed out by Roy, Jamie's belligerent demeanour is actually a big part of what makes him a great player. His technical skills shine the brightest when he's playing selfishly, and with his arrogance, he gets into the rival players' heads like no one else. When his Character Development negatively affects his game, he actually has to re-learn how and when to channel his inner Jerkass on the pitch.
• Deadpan Snarker: Frequently, and with everyone (though especially Roy, Ted, and Sam).
• Distracted by My Own Sexy: Often preoccupied and distracted by his own appearance.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Refuses to be helped and pushes people away when they try to help him, until Keeley calls him out on it.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even before he Took a Level in Kindness, Jamie always made sure to delete any nude photos sent to him by female lovers to ensure that they would never be made public if any hackers broke into his devices and stole them.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Played With. In the beginning of season 2, he has deliberately left Man City to star in a Love Island-esque reality show as a way of sticking it to his abusive father. Afterwards though, he has a hard time restarting his football career and he almost gets stuck in the trashy reality TV circus until Ted accepts him back at Richmond.
• Foil:
  • To Roy. Roy treats everyone with equal disdain, but also stands up for others while Jamie holds himself above everyone else and relentlessly bullies those he feels are holding him back.
  • Also to Dani. Jamie is a talented player who bullies other people and cares more about the financial benefits that come with being a successful footballer. Dani is a talented player who treats everyone with friendliness and kindness and only cares about playing the game of soccer itself.
  • To Sam, especially in Season 2. Sam maintains a healthy relationship with his father, who supports and encourages his son's ambitions while being more concerned about his well-being than his performance. Jamie's professional success, selfish playing style, and harassment toward other players are driven by the demands of his abusive father. Ted notices this difference, which influences his decision to re-sign Jamie to play for Richmond.
  • Also to Nate in terms of their Character Development. Jaime starts off as a selfish and egotistical Jerkass who learns how to be kinder and more humble to others. Nate starts off as a timid nice guy who becomes a meaner and more arrogant person as he gains confidence and ultimately pulls a Face–Heel Turn. Furthering the parallels, both men have fathers who are either physically or emotionally abusive, and whose approval they seem to crave. Both men ultimately end up walking away from their dream jobs on a matter of principle (Jamie to stick it to his abusive father, Nate because he objects to being drawn into Rupert’s cheating lifestyle), before being forgiven by those at Richmond and returning to the Dogtrack.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Jamie does have a genuine Freudian Excuse, namely that his father is an abusive Sports Dad and his behavior is his way of trying to make the man proud. However, he eventually realizes and admits to the team that striving to please his father has made him into a jerk and strives to do better.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: While he starts off with a few lackeys like Isaac and Colin, the whole team eventually gets fed up with his It's All About Me attitude after he ignores an injured Sam on the pitch. Following this, no one joins him in celebrating his goals. When the prospect of him rejoining the team arises, none of the players wants him back even though they could use his skills to end their winless streak. He grows out of this when he becomes the first white player to join Sam's protest against Dubai Air, saying "We're a team, aren't we?". From then on, he becomes welcomed back as a team player. This is averted by Season 3, where he's become part of the emotional and leadership core of the team.
• Friend to All Children: When Henry first comes to visit London, Jamie (before he Took a Level in Kindness) is incredibly sweet with him and happily signs his shirt for him. When Henry visits again two seasons later, Jamie, along with the rest of the team, hangs out with him during training and cheers him on as he plays keepie-uppie. Jamie also gets along well with Phoebe (even agreeing to participate in the Swear Jar practice usually reserved for Roy) and is very sweet to the child fans he meets after being dropped from Manchester City FC.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Even after he and Sam become friends, he can't help but feel jealous when he overhears Sam's loving phone call with his father.
• Hates Their Parent: Jamie held a disdain for his abusive Sports Dad and it's hard to blame him given the man's behaviour onscreen. The fact that he's a junior ("Jamie" often being a diminutive for "James") probably doesn't help.
• Hidden Depths:
  • As big as his ego is, Jamie does genuinely respect his fans and is happy to accommodate them. When Ted's son comes to visit, Jamie is incredibly sweet with him and signs his shirt for him. Then early in the second season, after a meeting about his glum career prospects, Jamie is clearly in a bad mood while leaving the building. However, he's quite kind and encouraging to the fans outside hoping for pictures and autographs.
  • "Sunflowers" reveals that he's very knowledgeable about Amsterdam after visiting the city with his mother and going on several tours.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After being benched, he attempts a power play against Ted to get back on the first team, only to discover that Ted can be very scary when he wants to be and the tongue lashing ends up breaking the grip he had on the other players.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: It's heavily implied that much of Jamie's ego is a way of dealing with the horrific emotional abuse his dad has inflicted upon him since childhood, constantly tearing into him over any mistakes and making him believe his only worth was as a football player.
• It's All About Me: For a long time he refuses to be a team player, preferring to take as much glory for himself during matches. It reaches a point where he starts screaming "ME!" whenever he scores a goal. This is subverted in season three when Richmond adopts Total Football and his "Eureka!" Moment is to realize people should stop giving him the ball expecting him to score, but give him the ball so he can keep it away from the other team while everyone else uses their new-found flexbility to get openings.
  Jamie: Don't pass it to me, pass it through me.
• Jerkass: In Season 1, he's a complete prick to everyone, but especially Roy and Sam.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In Season 2, he becomes a good teammate and a genuine friend to the other players while also respecting the coaches. That said, he'll gladly still act like a jerk to Richmond's opponents.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When he and Roy are trying to work out their differences, Jamie tells Roy that he shouldn't be expecting Jamie and everyone else to "kiss his ring" just because of his past success, especially since he isn't the player he was when he won all his trophies. Roy concedes it's a fair point. However, the Jerkass part kicks in when Jamie refuses to acknowledge Roy also has a point about Jamie's arrogance and selfishness and doesn't try to improve his own behaviour.
• Leitmotif: He gains one in the second season, called "Leaving The Studio". It's first heard when leaving his agent's office in "Lavender", and plays throughout the season whenever he showcases his Character Development.
• Malaproper: All part of his "country boy" personality. He describes his impending defeat of Richmond as "instant caramel" although he meant "karma".
• Motive Decay: As he admits to the rest of the team during the sacrificial bonfire ceremony, his career success coupled with his father's abuse caused him to forget that the whole reason he worked so hard at soccer was because he wanted to make his mother proud of him.
  • This becomes an even greater plot point towards the end of Season 3. He had started to catch fire, gaining great accolades and even making the English National Team lineup. However, when it came down to a massive rematch against Man City, his former and hometown team, Jamie starts acting erratically, refusing to take any positive credit for anything and outright breaking out into tears at the slightest inconvenience. He eventually realizes that he has lost all his motivation. He had built himself up so much to get back at his father, but now that he had developed so much as a person, that is nowhere near satisfying anymore but he can't replace the fire it brought leading to his behavior. It falls on Ted to guide him towards accepting everything that has molded him into what he is now, which allows him to play freely for the first time in a long time, without worry of being too selfish (or not selfish enough).
• Mr. Fanservice: He's good-looking, knows it and is eager to remind everyone else of it, to the point of going to the team's annual charity benefit shirtless ("For the Children"). In the first episode he skips out on meeting Ted with the rest of the team for a manscaping sesh with Keeley:
  Jamie: I'm getting waxed. It's more for the fans than for me. You know when I score the shirt's gotta come off.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Appearance-wise, Jamie bears an uncanny resemblance to winger Jack Grealish, particularly with this hairstyle in Season 2. Phil Dunster has acknowledged this, and also cites other influences: the "footballing brain", leadership and showmanship of James Maddison, the "showboating" of Cristiano Ronaldo (see also season 1 haircut), and the "short socks and tiny shin pads" of Paulo Dybala.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: He's talent-starved Richmond's best player by far, but he's also on loan to them by Manchester City because he's not talented enough to crack their lineup. When he gets sent back, he finds himself only getting a few minutes per match as a substitute and he only gets to start in the final match because the team has already locked up their place in the league table. This rears his head again in Season 3 when world class striker Zava joins the team and immediately outshines Jamie on the pitch, which leads to Jamie deciding to accept Roy's personal training offer so he can elevate his game.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Ted tries positive reinforcement with Jamie, telling him what an outstanding athlete he is, Jamie immediately goes round-eyed and can barely eke out an "I work hard, yeah." He even attempts to employ a team-first attitude, as Ted suggested, though it doesn't stick.
• Oop North: As evidenced by his accent, he grew up in the Manchester area and fits the abrasive, confrontational stereotype.
• Out of Focus: While he's still a main character in Season 2, he doesn't drive as many of the main plots as he did in Season 1 and the additional screen time given to the other players and new characters takes a bit of focus away from him. As a trade off, unlike Season 1, he's never Put on a Bus.
• Pet the Dog: For all his arrogance and bullying, Jamie does sincerely care very much about his fans and always makes an effort to be nice to them. He's also very sweet to Ted's son Henry.
• Pretty Boy: A very handsome young man, which is acknowledged several times.
• Proud Beauty: He takes pride in being handsome, much to other characters' annoyance. In season 2, Roy refuses to coach the newly-reformed Jamie until the younger man agrees with Roy that's he's an "ugly, ugly boy with bad hair", which Jamie finds very difficult to say. And when he finally spits it out, Roy says, "Cheers. I enjoyed that!" and walks away, which makes Jamie very angry.
• Put on a Bus: Briefly occurs in Season 1. After his loan is terminated at the end of "Two Aces", he returns to Manchester and, aside from a single short scene in "The Diamond Dogs", isn't seen again until the season finale.
• Rags to Riches: Grew up in a Council Estate and is now a wealthy professional athlete.
• Really Gets Around: After Keeley dumps him, he hooks up with another woman within a day or two and seems genuinely unfamiliar with the concept of showering alone.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: In Season 2, after learning some humility and having Roy start to warm up to him, he regains the admiration he had for him as a kid.
• Reformed Bully: In Season 2, he stops antagonizing everyone and becomes a respectful teammate and friend to the other characters.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Fed up with the fact his father continued to mentally and physically abuse him despite all of his success, Jamie decided to quit Manchester City and become a reality TV star to spite him.
• Signature Move: While Jamie is a talented scorer overall, long-distance free-kick goals are his speciality.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: During his time as an Attention Whore, his street clothing mostly consists of eye catching luxury brand pieces (with the brand names visible) that are meant to get people's attention and show how successful he is. After he becomes more humble, his clothing choices become more muted and subtle.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Granted, he is the star player but Jamie often carries himself like he is God's gift to football and treats everyone around him as lucky to be in his orbit when he's simply a talented player on a mid-level team who isn't seen as good enough to lead a major team. It takes a while and some ego-shattering experiences for him to learn humility.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Some of Roy's best insults fly right over Jamie's head.
• Took a Level in Badass: After early Season 3 sees Jamie being overshadowed and outclassed by Zava, he decides to step up his game by training with Roy after hours. This results in his play on the pitch improving dramatically, to the point he eventually gets a call up to the prestigious England national team and is named the Premier League Player of the Month near the end of the season.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In Season 2, Ted's lessons finally begin to stick and he actively works on being a better person and teammate, culminating in him joining Sam's protest against Dubai Air and encouraging everyone else to do the same. Before long, Jamie is happily participating in team meetings and unusual pre-game rituals. However, it's Deconstructed in the middle of the season when Roy points out to both Ted and Jamie that turning him into a team player has caused him to become less effective on the pitch. Afterwards, Jamie reaches a nice balance where he sometimes acts arrogant and selfish on the pitch when it will help the team score, but is still a good teammate and friend overall.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Jamie himself admits that he developed his selfish, abrasive personality to satisfy his father, who considered him soft and only cared about him scoring points. He eventually breaks out of this once he realizes what a jerk he's become and that his father will continue abusing him no matter how successful he becomes. In season three, he passes that mantle on to Roy, who takes a special interest in Jamie with extra training and finally tells him how proud he is of the hard work Jamie has done, and Jamie thanks him for being a supportive and encouraging older man in his life.

Roy Kent

Played by: Brett Goldstein

The Captain of AFC Richmond when Ted arrives. A once-legendary midfielder who's in the twilight of his career, which eventually ends due to age and injury. He joins Richmond's coaching staff in Season 2.

---

• '80s Hair: As revealed by a poster in Jamie's childhood bedroom, he used to wear a mullet in his earlier career. Not too surprising, as that particular hairstyle has never fallen out of fashion among footballers.
• Apathetic Student: Was this when he was a child, as he tells the kids at Richmond Primary that he always felt school was a waste of time.
• Actually Pretty Funny: He thinks Keeley's impression of him is pretty good.
• Been There, Shaped History: In the show's universe, Roy was a key contributor to Chelsea FC winning the 2012 UEFA Champions League and was also a member of the England national team that played in the 2014 World Cup and lost to Iceland at the 2016 European Championship.
• Berserk Button: Jamie is a major one for Roy in general, since Jamie's arrogant behaviour reminds Roy of how he used to act earlier on in his career and he's not proud of it.
  • He also gets really annoyed at being accused of having a hairy ass and even more so when his teammates don't speak up that he doesn't.
• Big Brother Instinct: To Sam and Nate, both of whom he comes to blows over.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Along with already having a lot of body hair, he also has very thick eyebrows, which Beard describes as "psychotic". In the stop-motion animated short "The Missing Christmas Mustache", they're so thick that he can easily combine them into a fake mustache for Ted (and he also somehow has the ability to instantly grow them back after he pulls them off).
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Roy is a lot more intelligent than Richmond's other players, but he doesn't actually use his smarts unless he feels like it. Once he joins the coaching staff, he takes up reading books as a hobby, but won't read scouting reports because he finds them boring.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: He's a very aggressive player who's confrontational with people on and off the field. However, he's also good with children and is adored by his niece.
• Brutal Honesty: Roy is not one to lie or be indirect with other people. Before warming up to Ted, he has no qualms about criticizing him to his face and even signs the insults he leaves in the suggestions box. When he becomes a pundit for Sky Sports, he does not mince words when it comes to analyzing and criticizing players' performances on the pitch. This endears him to viewers and fans who find his approach refreshing compared to the generic commentary provided by the other pundits.
• Bully Hunter: Roy has no tolerance for bullies and is quick to discipline teammates he sees acting that way.
• Career-Ending Injury: Permanently injures his knee when he tackles Jamie in the final episode of season 1 and is forced to retire. In the aftermath, he occasionally has to pause and pop the joint back in place.
• Carpet of Virility: He's often seen without a shirt, revealing his impressively hairy body. This is Played for Laughs when he and Keeley both note how much hair he leaves in the shower drain.
  Jamie: [to a shirtless Roy] If you're gonna go to the shower, you should take your sweater off first, pal.
• Character Development: Over the course of the series, Roy gradually opens himself up, becomes less guarded, and shows others (beyond his niece, Phoebe) that he has a soft-and-gentle side. However, season three ends with him upset that he hasn't made as much progress as he would like, having just gotten in a stupid fight with Jamie over Keeley. He even joins the Diamond Dogs to ask if real change is possible.
• Competence Zone: Downplayed and Justified in Season 1. He's nearly 40 in a highly physically demanding job, so it's only natural that he's slower and more prone to mistakes than his twentysomething teammates. Even then, he's still competent enough to be on the starting lineup in every game but the final, and it's clear from the way other characters talk about his career that he outclassed everyone on the Richmond team when he was in his prime.
• Cool Uncle: His niece Phoebe adores him, not because he's a pro footballer, but because he goes out of his way to spend time with her while his sister is working.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Roy is generally not an example of this, except when the other person pursuing Keeley is Jamie. He almost sinks their relationship before it starts because of Keeley having sex with Jamie after a misunderstanding and two years later gets into a fist fight with Jamie over her. Also, after Keeley's private video was leaked he asked her who it had been for, clearly wanting to know if she'd done it for Jamie.
• The Cynic: Especially towards Ted's coaching style at the beginning, though he eventually warms to it.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He's almost always dressed in black (accented by other very dark colors), but he's a strong leader who's compelled to look out for the little guy and adored by young children, especially his niece.
• Deadpan Snarker: Very much so, especially towards Jamie Tartt.
• Death Glare: This seems to be his default expression. One could argue he's scarier doing this than just yelling at people. He even does it to children.
• Dented Iron: His Career-Ending Injury from the end of Season 1 continues to bother him in Season 2, with him needing to occasionally pause to pop his knee back into place.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: The first half of Season 2 sees him struggling to adjust to retirement after spending most of his life as a professional footballer. After being unsatisfied with being a youth coach and a TV pundit, he accepts Ted's offer of joining Richmond's coaching staff and is finally content.
• Downtime Downgrade: He and Keeley break up offscreen between Seasons 2 and 3.
• The Dreaded: Played for Laughs. Pretty much everyone at Richmond is scared of Roy.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Played with. As a coach, Roy can be rude to the players, doing things such as slapping Jamie's dinner out of his hands and calling the entire team maggots before making them run until they vomited. However, he's also shown genuinely trying to help the players improve in contrast to Nate (who is rude to the players purely as a power trip without offering useful feedback) and offers words of encouragement to each individual player, even the reserves, before a match.
• Entitled to Have You: Downplayed. After breaking up with Keeley in season three because of his own insecurities, he believes that, now that he wants her back, she'll just jump back into a relationship with him like nothing happened since she didn't want to break up in the first place. Unsurprisingly, Keeley isn't having it.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Roy might be rude, cynical and ill-tempered, but he doesn't hold himself above anyone else and can't stand bullies like Jamie.
  • Despite coming across as the most "masculine" of the characters, Roy will not tolerate any misogyny. Case in point, he immediately shuts down George Cartrick's attempt at a Women Drivers joke on air by revealing for the Soccer Saturday audience Cartrick lost his driver's license for drunk driving.
  • Roy also has no love for Abusive Parents, to the point he's willing to comfort Jamie of all people after witnessing his father abuse him.
• Famed In-Story: Roy was considered a legendary player in his prime at Chelsea — spoken of in the same breath as Premier League greats like Thierry Henry and Steven Gerrard — with Jamie saying he idolized Roy as a child. When Roy returns to Stamford Bridge, Chelsea FC's home ground, the home supporters start cheering and singing his song to show that he's still held in high esteem despite not having played for Chelsea in years.
• Family Man: While Roy isn't married or has any children himself, he maintains close relationships with all of his blood family members, including his father, his siblings, and his niece. He also had a strong bond with his grandfather as a boy and has kept a blanket the man gave him as a gift into adulthood.
• Feeling Their Age: A recurring theme in Roy's storylines, and ultimately results in the decision to bench him for the final after a series of disastrous games.
• Foil:
  • To Jamie. Roy treats everyone with equal disdain, but also stands up for others while Jamie holds himself above everyone else and relentlessly bullies those he feels are holding him back.
  • Also for Ted, who is a relentlessly nice and polite person, while Roy is... relentlessly not. They both, however, deeply care for their friends and teammates.
  • In some ways to Nate: both are Drill Sergeant Nasty on the training pitch, but Roy is better at balancing this with genuine advice. They also both have issues around anger, insecurity, and poor self-image.
• Freudian Excuse: A lot of his ill-temperedness can be attributed to him growing up in a working class community before leaving his family at nine years old to pursue his athletic career where he was subjected to Training from Hell from the coaches.
• Friend to All Children: He gets along extremely well with kids, especially his niece Phoebe. Roy tends to be himself no matter who he's talking to, even children. Roy knows that when kids reach a certain age they like being talked to and respected like adults, advice he gives to Rebecca in Season 2.
• Good Is Not Nice: While Roy has a strong moral compass and will stand up for people who've been bullied, he's also a very angry and aggressive person who has no qualms about giving bullies some harsh physical punishment.
• Got Me Doing It: Much to his annoyance, Ted's personality has started to rub off on him by Season 3 and he starts making puns and jokes without prompting:
  Ted: Obviously I couldn't grow a beard. Otherwise, Coach and I here would look like a ZZ Top cover band.
  Roy: Would've been called "Sharp Dressed Men."
  Ted: Ooh, that's nice.
  Roy: God, I hate what you've fucking done to me.
• Grumpy Growler: He's a grouchy and easily angered man with a growly voice to match. He'll occasionally just growl when he doesn't feel like saying anything.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Easily enraged, which is taken advantage of by both Keeley and Jamie.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Roy's extreme anger issues and violent tendencies are always played for laughs, even more so as the seasons progress. He moves from recognizing that Colin and Isaac's treatment of Nate is out of line to delighting in the terror and physical pain the players are experiencing from being tied together by their penises.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Is very fond of (and good with) children, as shown by his relationship with his niece Phoebe and the children at her school.
  • He takes a yoga class twice a week with a bunch of elderly women (because they don't recognize him) and is close enough with the class that he'll stay out all night with them because one member needed to blow off steam due to marital problems. Season 2 shows that he's happy to hang out with them outside of class on other occasions.
  • He reveals to Ted and Isaac that, during his career, whenever he found himself in a slump he would return to his old neighbourhood and play pick up games with the locals to remind himself that football is supposed to be enjoyable.
• History with Celebrity: After Ted makes a reference to Showgirls, Roy tells him that he actually once dated Gina Gershon.
  Ted: That makes me happy.
• Hot-Blooded: Roy is famous throughout the football world for his temper, which is a defining feature of his style of play.
• I Hate Past Me: Part of his animosity towards Jamie stems from the young player's behaviour is very similar to how Roy acted when he was a rising star in the league, which he now understands was obnoxious.
• Inconvenient Attraction: To Keeley, who is dating Jamie, who he hates. After Keeley breaks up with Jamie, this becomes... less inconvenient.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Roy may be angry and kind of a jerk, but is incredibly sweet to his six-year-old niece and Keeley. He also helps Sam win over Richmond fans and defends Nate from his teammates who are bullying him. And after one and a half seasons of disliking Jamie, he sees Jamie's father humiliate him after a big loss, and then goes and gives him a hug. And continues to hold him even as Jamie starts to break down and cry.
• King Incognito: He's a member of a yoga class with several middle-aged women who have no idea he's a legendary Premier League footballer.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He's an angry man bitter about the downward trajectory of his career, but he finds himself compelled to stand up for others and, ultimately, knows when to put his ego aside for the benefit of the team.
• Like a Son to Me: He develops this kind of relationship with Jamie in the third season, taking the younger player under his wing to give him extra training and telling him he's So Proud of You for the way he's developed by the end of the season.
  Jamie: I just want to say thank you for supporting me and encouraging me. I don't really get that from older men in my life.
• Limited Wardrobe: When not wearing kit, he's either wearing a black leather jacket with a black shirt and black jeans or a black suit with a black shirt, occasionally with a dark-coloured tie for the barest hint of variety.
  Keeley: [imitating Roy] I'm Roy Kent. Why do I have to go shopping? I already own a black shirt and jeans.
• Living Legend: Roy is a legendary player who played for England's national team and helped Chelsea FC win the UEFA Champions League in 2012. Because of his accomplishments, he is still beloved by Richmond's fans even though he's not as skilled as he was in his prime. Season 3 shows that Chelsea's supporters still hold him in high esteem after his retirement and even Zava is shown to respect Roy for his legendary career.
• Mentor Archetype:
  • Becomes one of these for Jamie - even though their relationship is primarily Vitriolic Best Buds due to their clashing egos and conflicting history, he's still happy to give Jamie one-on-one training and provide a (snarky) listening ear when Jamie opens up about his traumatic childhood.
  • Also serves as one of these for his successor, Isaac - who is just as much of a hot-blooded stoic as Roy, and thus it's acknowledged in-universe that Roy's the best person to connect with him. Although he notably is a lot gentler on Isaac due to Isaac's genuine insecurities.
• Meaningful Name: It's certainly fitting that a (former) team captain and football legend has a name that means "king".
• Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Inverted. After retiring, he becomes the coach for Phoebe's youth team and speaks to the girls just like his old teammates, complete with his usual swearing.
• New Job as the Plot Demands: He goes from the team's veteran captain to girls' youth coach to sports pundit to joining Ted's coaching staff. Justified since he's in the twilight of his athletic career at the start of the series and is Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life after he's forced to retire.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He's based on former Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane, particularly with his first name and Hot-Blooded personality. Keane, now a notable pundit known for his scathing remarks, once claimed he was nicer. The entire studio burst out laughing.
• Not So Above It All:
  • He denies it, but he genuinely believes that the treatment room is cursed.
  • He loves tea just as much as the other British characters and is amused by Ted's distaste for it.
  • After agreeing to help Ted help Isaac overcome his recent leadership struggles, he has them meet him in a parking garage and hides in the shadows so he can spook them.
  • By Season 3, he's started joining in on Ted and Beard's antics in the office such as cooing while sharing favorite Julie Andrews performances and pretending to be an injured monkey to convince Trent to contribute to a tactics conversation.
• Odd Friendship: Seems to be developing this with Coach Beard, since they're both no-nonsense, straight-shooting, antisocial men of few words.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Even though Roy despises Jamie, after witnessing the abuse Jamie endures from his dad, Roy immediately gives him a hug and holds him while he cries.
• Papa Wolf: When he hears that a boy in Phoebe's class made her upset, he immediately starts rising up, fully intent on kicking the crap out of a child. Keeley is able to dissuade him.
• Parental Substitute: Since Phoebe's father is, in Roy's words, a "living piece of shit", he acts as her primary father figure.
  • He's also become this somewhat to Jamie of all people by the end of Season 3. Even Jamie admits that he's not used to having "older men" to look up to. It's quite clear that Roy goes out of his way to help Jamie when he can, and he's the first one Jamie goes to when he's having issues related to his father.
• Perpetual Frowner: His face rarely changes from the same unhappy, vaguely angry expression. In "4-5-1", when he tells Jamie how his frowning while the team has been on a winning streak isn't a good look, Jamie retorts that Roy frowned for his whole career.
  Roy: Does my face look like it's in the mood for shape-based jokes?
  Ted: No, Roy, it does not. But, in my defense, it rarely does.
• Pitbull Dates Puppy: The gruff grumpy Roy and the bubbly Keeley get together in the late season 1.
• Racist Dad: His old man's from South London and in his sixties, so yeah, he's a bit racist.
• Rags to Riches: He grew up with his working-class family in a dingy apartment in South London before making millions as a professional footballer.
• Real Men Cook: Roy cooks for Keeley and is a fan of Nigella Lawson's recipes.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He is seen singing along to Rebecca's karaoke rendition of "Let It Go", implying that he's familiar with the movie it's from. Season 2 reveals he enjoys hanging out with the other members of his yoga class — all of whom are older women — drinking rosé and watching trashy reality shows. He also loves white orchids and is a big fan of The Muppets. Season 3 then reveals he's a big Julie Andrews fan and has seen several of her films, including The Princess Diaries.
• Running Gag:
  • Whenever he faces an issue that his usual anger can't get rid of (like people being mature and reasonable at him), he'll yell "Fuck!" and storm off.
  • In the first season, people calling him old.
• Sergeant Rock: In contrast to Ted's Captain Smooth. Ted is all about the soft touch and high concept morals, whereas Roy would rather headbutt you, tell you why you sucked, and demand that you better or he'll headbutt you again. Roy's also much more in tune with the intricacies and true potential of the other players, and has no problem turning the worst parts of their personalities into their best assets.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: He swears constantly and loudly, even around young children and when he appears as a pundit on Soccer Saturday, the latter of which appalls the TV people as much as it impresses the regular fans. In fact, Roy's swearing is one of the first things that come to his niece's mind when she's asked to describe him. It's later revealed that he's supposed to pay her a pound every time he swears in front of her, and he's run up a tab of £1236. His swearing later becomes a problem in "Man City" when it starts to rub off on Phoebe and she gets in trouble for swearing at school.
  • Upon winning the Emmy award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy, Brett Goldstein went "Full Roy Kent" in his acceptance speech to the the utter joy of everyone except the TV censors.
• Sour Supporter:
  • He gradually comes to like and respect Ted despite his initial coldness.
  • Likewise to the Diamond Dogs. He found the concept ridiculous and unbearable in the first season. Late second season he wants them to listen to his problem and is pleased and surprised to learn that sometimes all you need is for someone to listen to you. Pretty much the only thing keeping him from officially joining in the third season is that he doesn't want to participate in the dog barking that opens the meetings, as he otherwise listens in and offers his thoughts.
• The Stoic: Admits to having difficulty openly expressing emotions beyond anger and apathy.
• Suddenly Shouting: When he's not raspy, he has a habit shouting. "FUCK!" is a favorite, along with walking into the locker room yelling, "Oi! Tartt!".
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He's an attractive, athletic Deadpan Snarker with dark hair, dark eyes and an almost exclusively black wardrobe.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Season 3 sees Roy at his gruffest and most confrontational after his breakup with Keeley. He also becomes a lot harsher to the players at training during this season, culminating in him making them practice spacing for the Total Football strategy by tying them by their genitalia.
• Training from Hell: In "Midnight Train to Royston", Roy reveals that his first coach would chase him around the pitch on a motorbike to make him run fast.
• Tritagonist: Aside from Ted and Rebecca, Roy is the character who gets the most focus as the series devotes a significant amount of time following the twilight of his playing career and his personal life.
• Unmanly Secret: He secretly takes a yoga class with a group of middle aged women who have no idea he's a famous footballer, which he's forced to admit is the reason why he didn't answer one of Keeley's texts. Season 2 reveals that he often hangs out with them outside of class, drinking wine and watching trashy TV shows.
• Unstoppable Rage: Nate's pre-game roast pushes a few too many buttons, and Roy responds by flipping a bench (that was nailed to the floor) and then playing like a man possessed, scoring a goal (a rare event, according to the commentators) and breaking Richmond's sixty-year losing streak against Everton.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • While Roy never quite stops finding Ted's peppy attitude annoying, he does come to appreciate his leadership skills and gives him his full support as team captain and later an assistant coach.
  • Eventually develops this relationship with Jamie of all people. While he's still irritated by a lot of his behavior and enjoys seeing him embarrassed, he still goes out of his way to help him develop into a true superstar player and bonds with him during their sessions. When Phoebe points out that Jamie is Roy's best friend, Roy immediately denies it, only to be offended when Jamie says that he considers Isaac his best friend.
• Vocal Evolution: He gradually becomes more raspy as the series goes on, with his voice becoming deeper and rougher in later seasons compared to earlier episodes.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Apparently he's lactose intolerant, and once pooped his pants on the bus after eating too much ice cream despite knowing he shouldn't.
• When He Smiles: The way his face lights up when Phoebe waves to him in the schoolyard shows Ted and the audience that deep down he's not such a grump.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: He's afraid that he has become or will become a sports version of this. In reality, he's more of a subversion; despite being in the twilight of his career at the beginning of the show, he's still greatly respected and very popular among fans and he does have a fulfilling life outside of football, with a circle of friends and a very good relationship with his family. Keeley often tries to make him see there's a life outside of his career, and he eventually finds ways to still be involved with football after he's forced to retire, first as a pundit and later as an assistant coach for his old team.
• Would Hurt a Child: When he hears that one of Phoebe's classmates was mean to her, he becomes fully intent on beating the kid up and has to be talked down by Keeley. When he thinks Henry, Ted's son, is being bullied, he recommends that Ted sneak into the bully's room at 4 A.M. and beat the kid with a thick rope soaked in red paint.
• You Are in Command Now: After Ted leaves the club in the series finale, Rebecca appoints Roy as the new manager with Coach Beard and Nate as his assistants.
• You Are What You Hate: He begrudgingly admits that he wasn't all that different from Jamie when he was starting out.

Coach Beard

Played by: Brendan Hunt

Assistant manager of AFC Richmond. He's also Ted Lasso's old friend and colleague from America, and is far more in tune with British culture and football.

---

• The Atoner: The Reveal in "Mom City"—that Ted went out of his way to help Beard back on his feet after Beard hit rock-bottom from spending time in jail, and Beard betrayed him by stealing his car and would have gone back to prison if Ted hadn't lied to the police for him—adds an element of this trope to Beard's Undying Loyalty to Ted.
• Best Friend: He is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Ted's best friend and closest confidant. You don't develop the ability to finish each other's sentences without that kind of closeness, not to mention moving halfway across the world to continue working together. He's also incredibly supportive of Ted once his mental health struggles are leaked to the press, and sends a few subtle threats in Nate's direction when Beard susses out that he was the leak.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: He's not a very talkative person (especially compared to Ted), but his effortlessly overpowering and ejecting James Tartt from the locker room, even deliberately bumping his head for good measure, is a sign that he's not someone to trifle with. He manages to hold his own for a second against Tartt and his two friends in "Beard After Hours".
• Cloudcuckoolander: Outside of work, Coach Beard has some very strange hobbies and interests, such as philosophical theories about the role of human beings in the universe.
• Competition Freak: Downplayed, but still a considerable flaw of his. He openly admits that he hates losing and he sabotages his first date with Jane by insisting on playing chess instead of having a good time. However, he's a necessary part of Ted's coaching style to make sure Ted actually focuses on trying to win the game.
• Cold Ham: He may be quite reserved, but he has no problem indulging in faux-dramatic behaviour and silly facial expressions.
• Dark and Troubled Past: After college, he had a criminal stint involving drugs and carjacking. It's thanks to Ted's kindness that he didn't go right back to prison after a parole violation. The fact that his mother is mentioned to be a diehard QAnon follower implies that he didn't have the best upbringing, either.
• A Day in the Limelight: He's front and centre in the episode "Beard After Hours", where most of the other regulars get little if any screen time.
• Deadpan Snarker: Most of his humour comes in this form.
• Expansion Pack Past: When something unfortunate happens to a player, Beard will occasionally pipe up that the same thing's happened to him in the past.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He's only ever referred to as Coach Beard, even by Ted, his longtime friend and colleague.
• Foil:
  • To Ted. Quiet and focused on the sport compared to Ted's talkative carefree nature.
  • To Nate: Beard's loyalty to Ted is undying, while Nate betrays Ted's mental health problems to the press. Later Subverted when it turns out Beard isn't that different to Nate after all: both men betrayed Ted after he went out of his way to help them.
• Hidden Depths:
  • His solo episode hints at a lot of deep-seated insecurities and destructive self-loathing, as he takes failures in his professional and personal life so seriously that he feels that he deserves to be punished. However, the episode also reveals his ability to improvise his way into a very posh nightclub and, thanks to a past relationship with an Oxford professor, is easily capable of bluffing some Oxford alums into thinking he's an Irish professor of economics there. He also plays chess and has serious thoughts about existential philosophy.
  • "Sunflowers" reveals he speaks fluent Dutch, although he swears Will to secrecy because he doesn't want Jan Maas to know, for whatever reason.
  • We learn his true backstory in Mom City, revealing he was a jail mate prior to becoming a coach, even abusing Ted's kindness before becoming devotedly loyal to him.
• Hollywood Law: Immigration law specifically, as it's fairly unlikely someone with Beard's criminal record would have been given a working visa for the United Kingdom although the fact that his crimes were many years ago and not as serious as most acts that get people barred from the country could explain it, as well as the strong possibility that Rebecca pulled strings to get him in.
• Honest Advisor: Tells Ted in no uncertain terms that his philosophy of prioritizing the players' feelings ahead of wins and losses may work with a college team, but has disastrous repercussions for a professional football league.
• Honorary Uncle: Since he's Ted's best friend, it's not surprising that he serves as this to Ted's son Henry. Whenever Henry visits London, Beard goes out of his way to spend time with him and also gives him some profound life advice, like when he explains the origins of the song "Hey Jude" to show how Ted and Michelle's divorce doesn't impact their love for him.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Unlike Ted, Coach Beard actually understands association football in addition to American football. Thus, he's able to guide Ted through the game while also helping the players understand how Ted's philosophy applies to their strategy.
• It's Personal: More so than anyone else at AFC Richmond, Coach Beard takes Nate leaking Ted's secret about his panic attacks to the press and then jumping ship to West Ham United very personally, to the point where after the club parts ways with Nate he forgets all about Ted's usual "nein schadenfreude" to celebrate by having an axe throwing party with pictures of Nate as the targets. It turns out this is because Nate's betrayal reminded Beard of his own actions: when they were younger Ted helped Beard back on his feet after a stint in prison, and Beard betrayed him by stealing his car.
• The Lancer: Beard is Ted's right hand and handles much of the direct coaching to make sure Richmond understands Ted's vision. He's invaluable because he has a better understanding of football, the team, and the cultural differences between the US and the UK.
• Manly Tears: He cries after admitting to Nate that he once seriously betrayed Ted's trust only for Ted to forgive him and help him get back on his feet after getting out of and almost going back to prison.
• Meaningful Name: Guess what Coach Beard has on his face.
• My Greatest Failure: He's ashamed of himself for stealing Ted's car after Ted was the only person who supported him after he was released from prison and later lied to the police when Beard was caught with the car to save him from going back. Most of his anger at Nate's betrayal stems from Nate's actions reminding him of his own.
• Never Bareheaded: You could count on one hand how many times he's seen without his hat or one like it.
• Nice Guy: Less overt than many other characters given his more reserved nature, but Beard ultimately is a friendly, caring guy who looks out for his friends.
• Nightmare Fetishist: He's eager at the prospect of seeing a dead body at an open casket funeral, shows enthusiasm for an immersive Jack the Ripper-themed walking tour where you apparently get chased at some point, and owns 17 axes (and according to him, not all of them are just for the sport of axe-throwing).
• No Full Name Given: Everyone addresses him by his last name, even Ted. His given name, Willis, is only revealed in the season 3 finale.
• Not So Stoic: His silly outbursts are rare, but they happen, and he cries in shame from his betrayal of Ted back in the day.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Much like Ted, Coach Beard doesn't get angry much, but the first time he does, it's with Ted, due to the latter's insistence on protecting Roy's feelings over the team winning games and preventing themselves from getting relegated.
• Papa Wolf: When Jamie's father attempts to strike him in Richmond's locker room, Coach Beard grabs him and tosses him out (while also deliberately hitting him against the doors) before he can get the chance.
• The Quiet One: Speaks very little, in contrast to the loquacious Ted. Lampshaded by himself in "Beard After Hours", when he tells the pub regulars that he grows wiser by spending more time listening than talking.
• Signature Headgear: He's almost never seen without a baseball cap, as he owns several with different colors and logos. He starts including flat caps after Jane gifts him one.
• The Smart Guy: Easily the person with the widest breadth of knowledge in the entire club. He's constantly seen reading books on a variety of different subjects, and is really good at deducing secrets through simple observation, like how Nate leaked Ted's panic attack to the press.
• Smart People Play Chess: An avid chess player ^note he dates a woman so adept they play games in their heads exchanging moves verbally, Beard is the part of the American coaching duo mostly responsible for understanding the mechanical differences of English Football to American Football, and designing training regimen that matches Ted's philosophical style.
• The Stoic: Rarely emotes and Ted considers it a badge of honour if Beard verbally expresses his fondness for someone.
• Suddenly Shouting: Almost always speaks calmly, but when he needs to get the players' attention, the man can yell.
• Those Two Guys: He and Ted have a relationship spanning decades, going back to their time on the special teams in college football. Ted being the only person to show him faith and trust after his stint in prison means Beard has Undying Loyalty to Ted as well, cementing their relationship.
• Translator Buddy: He has a much better grasp on British English than Ted does, and often steps up to help him bridge the translation gap when Ted doesn't understand something or uses the wrong terminology. He also has a better grasp of British football and helps him with the rules and techniques needed for the game.
• Undying Loyalty: The fact that Beard willingly moved halfway across the world to assist Ted with coaching a sport he had no experience shows that he will always be there for him, no matter how crazy the circumstances.
  • "Mom City" reveals that after going to prison (for drug-related offenses, since he tells Nate that he "stole a loaf of meth"), and then stealing Ted's car, the fact Ted forgave him and helped him get back on his feet means Beard owes everything to Ted.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Was one in his backstory. After Ted was the only person to provide Beard with support following his prison release, Beard repaid Ted's kindness by stealing his car. Ted lying to the police that he lent Beard the car to save him from being imprisoned for violating his parole made him realize how ungrateful he was and he became determined to never betray Ted's loyalty again.
• Would Hurt a Child: When he thinks Henry, Ted's son, is being bullied, he immediately lays out a plan that culminates with himself and Ted burning the bully's house down.

Nate Shelley

Played by: Nick Mohammed

Kit manager of AFC Richmond who is a soccer strategy genius. Later is promoted to be the Junior Coach underneath Ted and Coach Beard.

---

• Acquired Situational Narcissism:
  • Gets this in Season 2 after he starts getting attention from the media and becomes obsessed with his public image and how other people are perceiving him. This continues into Season 3, where Nate is regularly seen checking Twitter and obsessing over how the media is covering his stint at West Ham, before gradually fading as he becomes more settled into his relationship with Jade and realising that Celebrity Is Overrated.
  • This trope is used to convey Nate’s genuine guilt over how he’s left things with Ted: as despite his Acquired Situational Narcissism he abandons a presser celebrating his win over Richmond to speak with Ted, once a reporter notes he forgot the customary post-match handshake.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ted calls him "Nate the Great". The team also takes to calling him "Wonder Kid" after his post-game interview, although that one quickly becomes embarrassing.
• All Take and No Give: He wants to receive public recognition and credit for his match strategies, but only if they work. He's pleased when Ted credits him with the false nine tactic against Brentford, until Richmond is down at the half and he takes offense when Ted continues to call it "Nate's False Nine". This also rears its head when he attempts to recreate the Diamond Dogs at West Ham, as he wants his staff to listen to his personal problems and give advice while refusing to give them the same courtesy.
• Almighty Janitor: He starts out as a lowly kit manager who happens to be an expert on soccer strategy and player analysis.
• Ambition Is Evil: Nate burns a lot of bridges in the pursuit of his ambitions, becoming more focused on his own issues and lashing out at other people. His return to Richmond, which is portrayed as the culmination of his character growth and self actualization arc, involves him quitting his high paying manager job and him rejoining Richmond in an assistant role.
• The Atoner: By the end of Season 3.
• Attention Whore: Owing to his father's withholding of validation throughout his life, Nate is fixated on gaining recognition and respect from his peers. (The fact that in season 1 he was significantly contributing to the coaching team's tactical strategy while still working a kitman probably contributed to this.) Unfortunately this only leads to resentment on his part when he doesn't get it.
• Badass Bookworm: He’s shy, smart, and turns into someone who’s definitely not to be messed with.
• Be Yourself: A big part of Nate's character arc in Season 3 - he's attained the fame and success that he's always wanted, but remains the same slightly awkward, fundamentally nice guy with various uncool interests (such as classic Broadway musicals and arts & crafts projects). While he attempts to change in order to fit into Rupert's superficial celebrity lifestyle, ultimately he's unwilling to compromise who he is in order to fit in - refusing to change his tastes to impress Anastasia on their date, or to cheat on Jade to fit in with Rupert.
  • He also attempts to impress Jade with his new success, to little avail. However, Nate embracing the more authentic, less flashy aspects of his personality is what ultimately catches her attention.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Dialogue suggests that he has crush on Keeley not because of her looks or fame, but because she was one of the few people at Richmond who was kind to him even before Ted came along.
  Nate: Keeley's just so kind, you know, to be liked by someone like her must be...wonderful.
  • Throughout Season 1 this is also his relationship with Ted.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: He’s soft-spoken, unfailingly polite, and painfully shy: barely able to speak to Rebecca or raise his voice against the players when they mess with him. And with a little encouragement from Ted, he delivers an absolutely scathing roast of each member of the team to rile them up for the match, even the terrifying Roy. This is then dialled up to eleven in Season 2 where he Grew a Spine – despite still being physically soft-spoken, he’s become a lot harsher and unforgiving.
• Berserk Button: Implying that Nate doesn't deserve his title as coach, or trying to patronise him in any way, is a surefire way of earning Nate's ire.
• Break the Haughty: In Season 3, Nate is forced to confront the fact that, even if he is a successful Premier League manager, it does not necessarily mean that everyone will automatically fawn over or like him. While he manages to land a date with a supermodel with his clout, the date itself immediately goes south thanks to the poor mismatch of their personalities and the supermodel in question only really being interested in him for clout.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • In Season 1, Nate admires Roy for his legendary career and is grateful towards him for stopping the other players from bullying him. By the end of Season 2 his view of Roy seems decidedly more mixed: resenting the fact that Roy seemingly doesn’t respect him enough to consider him a threat to his relationship with Keeley, and clearly envying Roy’s celebrity, but still admiring the man enough to try and mimic his fashion style and alpha-male attitude.
  • In Season 3, Nate latches onto to Rupert as another Parental Substitute and considers him a great man that he owes a lot to. Once he's finally confronted with undeniable proof that Rupert is not a good person, he's devastated.
• Brutal Honesty: It takes him some time to come out of his shell, but once Ted encourages him to speak his mind this is him: most strikingly when he roasts the team before a game to motivate them. He also does it to Colin in Season 2 but rather than the good-natured ribbing of the earlier example, it's portrayed as a moment of striking cruelty on Nate's part and done for no reason than sheer petulance.
• The Bully: In Season 2, he loves lording his newfound authority over the team and is quick to harshly criticze the players and Will.
• Butt-Monkey: Nate has long been harassed as the kit manager by Jamie and several other players, until Roy finally has enough and disciplines them.
• Can't Take Criticism: All it takes is one negative tweet about him in a list of dozens and dozens of positive ones for him to lose his temper and lash out against Will.
• Celebrity Is Overrated: After ignoring Keeley's warnings about this in Season 2, Season 3 sees Nate come face to face with this lesson. It doesn't take him long to realise he's getting very little out of his new celebrity lifestyle and it's not as great as it appeared to be from afar.
• Chronic Self-Deprecation: He's this in Season 1. As a lowly, bullied kit man, he is surprised by the slightest bit of kindness and decency shown to him by Ted and others, and is too anxious to share his ideas until Ted encourages him to do so. This gets deconstructed in Season 2, where the Freudian Excuse for his behavior is shown in the form of his emotionally distant, critical father. So, despite the support from Richmond, Nate's self-deprecation starts to express itself as an Inferiority Superiority Complex, leading to his Face–Heel Turn at the end of the season. It takes him truly reconciling with his father and learning to love himself in Season 3 for him to find a balance of humility and assertiveness.
• Cool Uncle: He spends a lot of time doing arts and crafts projects with his niece, who clearly adores him.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Extreme Doormat assistant who Grew a Spine archetype. In Season 1 this archetype is played straight, showing Nate as a shy but capable kitman whose talents are encouraged by Ted, and who ultimately achieves his goals by being promoted to Assistant Coach at the end of the season. However, because Nate’s internal issues – bullying from the team, a withholding father, a desperate need for validation and a belief that respect translates directly to power – were never dealt with, his desperation for validation and success lead him to treat his colleagues poorly and he ends up jumping ship for West Ham at the end of the second season, becoming A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil to Ted.
• Dirty Coward: After leaking the story of Ted's panic attack he holds back from admitting what he did to his colleagues. Considering this includes twenty-two athletic football players all vowing to beat the crap out of the anonymous source (and Coach Beard), this perhaps isn't all that surprising.
• Disease Bleach: Throughout season 2, his hair starts graying the more his character develops towards the negative. When he jumps ship to West Ham, his hair has turned completely grey to symbolize his break with Richmond and Ted.
  Nick Mohammed: In the way bitterness, guilt, shame and stress can often change someone's appearance, they thought it would be fun to track Nate's spiral in this way.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • It's done to inspire them, but Nate is clearly relishing the chance to have a go at the team during the Everton roast after months of putting up with their crap in the locker room.
  • Played for Drama in Season 2 when he gives his Reformed Bully Colin a particularly brutal dressing-down that becomes downright cruel. It's particularly painful because Colin has improved in his treatment of Nate, but judging by Nate's behaviour he's still nursing some serious resentment.
• Domestic Abuse: He suffered from his father's emotional distance and Moving the Goalposts attitudes toward his accomplishments, which left him with some scars. He also gets subjected to the abuser's tactic of isolation and manipulation by Rupert in the third season, who repeatedly blocks possibilities of reconciliation between Nate and Ted, encourages a brutal managerial style that will leave him separate from the players and staff, and tries to sabotage his relationship with Jade.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: During Season 2, it's clear that Nate doesn't understand that it takes more than having good strategies to be an effective coach. When looking at the picture of John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success", he focuses entirely on the "competitive greatness" at the top while ignoring the key pillars at the bottom such as "loyalty" and "cooperation".
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Owing to his own strict upbringing, Nate genuinely believes that, in his own words, "pressure makes pearls": continually critiquing Will as kitman, berating Colin during training, and setting up a "dumb-dumb line" for West Ham players who don't get it right to stand behind.
• Drunk with Power: Working in a hyper-masculine environment, Nate equates respect and power through external shows of strength, and so soon begins to mishandle his powers as coach in Season 2.
• Easily Forgiven: Despite all he did to Richmond and his being the manager of their arch-rivals, once Nate up and leaves West Ham and sends the apology card to Will, the rest of the team go out of their way to invite him back. They gently goad him for being 'absent' for the entire season, but that's the worst they do to him.
• Embarrassing Nickname: He's hugely insecure about the "Wonder Kid" nickname because it comes from him mispronouncing "wunderkind" on live television.
• Entitled Bastard: He becomes a colossal one in Season 2, believing he is owed enormous respect and acclaim for his contributions and lashing out at anyone he sees as having denied him that.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Despite having a tendency to be insensitive towards other people's personal problems, he is positively appalled at the way Jamie's father treats him when he sees it.
  • Is repeatedly shown to be made uncomfortable by Rupert's cheating. His Broken Pedestal moment with Rupert occurs when Rupert tries to get Nate to cheat on Jade during their "guy's night" at the club. Nate refuses to do so and leaves.
  • The second Roger, West Ham's Director of Football Operations, advises Nate to try out the sexist practice of "negging", Nate shuts the conversation down.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: See Horrible Judge of Character below for how he completely misjudged Trent Crimm when he went to him with the secret of Ted's panic attacks. Later in Season 3, he is furious and dumbfounded when he watches Richmond's press conference and sees Ted Turn the Other Cheek to Nate's insults and begins to engage in Self-Deprecation.
• Evil Is Petty: He purposefully pushes Ted's buttons regarding his son and being away from him, and later goes out of his way to rip the "Believe" sign in half, leaving it on Ted's desk before leaving AFC Richmond out of spite.
• Face–Heel Turn: Gradually pulls one through most of season 2: becoming a harsher taskmaster with those such as Colin and Will, becoming more obsessed with his image in the press, and his growing resentment of Ted for always getting credit for the effectiveness of his tactics. Comes to a conclusion when he outs Ted's mental health issues to the press and quits Richmond. Season 3 is then spent on Nate's ensuring Heel–Face Turn.
• Family Man: Nate is shown to be genuinely close with his family and frequently returns home for family occasions. He's very close with his mother and sister, his niece considers him a Cool Uncle and loves doing arts and crafts projects with him, and by the end of Season 3 he is repairing a strained relationship with his father.
• Fatal Flaw: His insecurity. Despite his incredible rise from a bullied kitman to a leading figure of a major football team, Nate is stil tortured by self-doubt and almost all of Nate's worst actions are borne from his need to tear others down to feel better about himself and reassure himself that he deserves his success, even if it means betraying those who helped him reach that level. It's only when he finally becomes more confident in himself that he is able to truly grow and admit his wrongdoing.
• Foil:
  • To Jamie, in terms of their Character Development. Jaime starts off as a selfish and egotistical Jerkass who learns how to be kinder and more humble to others. Nate starts off as a timid nice guy who becomes a meaner and more arrogant person as he gains confidence, before ultimately having to learn the same lessons as Jamie. Both men's issues stem from having fathers who are either physically or emotionally abusive, and whose approval they seem to crave (although it's revealed that in Nate's case his father's poor parenting was unintentional, coming from a place of Poor Communication Kills, while Jamie's dad was just a Jerkass through and through). They also both develop romantic feelings for Keeley as a result of her kindness and support (although she reciprocates neither man's affections in a romantic sense) and both go through a Heel–Face Turn at some point in the show.
  • To Beard, in terms of their relationship to Ted. Beard is undyingly loyal to Ted and wouldn't think to turn against his friend (again) no matter how badly their disagreements get. Nate, however, withdraws from Ted over the course of Season 2 and betrays his trust through the leak, and ends up leaving him in order to go to West Ham for a better job opportunity.
  • To Roy. Both men have serious anger issues and insecurities, and a big part of their character development is learning how to handle those issues and grow in confidence. During training both of them employ Brutal Honesty and have a tendency to be a Drill Sergeant Nasty: pushing the players to extremes and calling them names to scare/motivate them. The difference is that Roy's intense training is Played for Laughs, and it's demonstrated that he knows how far to push players and when to back off due to his own time on the pitch. Nate, meanwhile, genuinely believes that intense pressure with little follow-up or explanation gets results, as a result of his father's harsh parenting style.
  • By the end of Season 2, he's this to Ted in terms of their coaching styles. Ted is A Father to His Men who focuses on creating a strong team culture and is willing to take his share of responsibility for their failures, while Nate is a Drill Sergeant Nasty with painfully high expectations for the team.
  • He also has parallels to Higgins. Both start the show as Butt-Monkey Nice Guys to their respective superiors who have, in the past, betrayed the trust of their superiors (Higgins because he helped Rupert cover up his many affairs from Rebecca, Nate by leaking the story of Ted's mental health struggles to the press). Both are also somewhat Endearingly Dorky men who are nonetheless beloved by the footballers: as shown by many of the expat players taking up Higgins' invitation to Christmas dinner, and by the Richmond players affectionately teasing Nate and buying him a custom-made jersey to celebrate his newfound fame. However, Higgins has enough stability in his personal life (with a loving and stable family and a wide-ranging social network) that he is happy to remain the Nice Guy, whereas Nate's family issues and limited friendship group outside the club make him misinterpret friendly gestures from those he is close with for mockery. Finally, Higgins regrets helping Rupert cover up his affairs; meanwhile, while Nate came to work with Rupert at the end of Season 2, it's ultimately Rupert's affairs (and his encouraging Nate to join in with them) that spurs Nate to leave him.
  • To Rebecca, in regards to their relationships with Rupert in Season 3. Rupert had charmed a young Rebecca in a similar way to how he charmed Nate: lovebombing them and making them feel special, before turning mercurial (Rebecca has mentioned in the past how he would say things that she thought were just honesty but were actually cruel, while Nate is told to call Rupert "Mr. Mannion" in private and "Rupert" in public). He also isolated each from their support circle, with Rebecca not speaking to Sassy or Nora for six years and Nate leaving Richmond, blocked from speaking to the team every time he started to feel guilty. While each had done horrible things to Ted because of Rupert (Rebecca hiring Ted to take down Richmond in revenge, Nate leaking the panic attack and then leaving because of Rupert's offer), they were ultimately responsible for their own actions. Once they were pushed too far (Rebecca with the affair and Nate with the disrespect to Jade), they quit and found their self worth again through remembering their childhoods.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Nate’s conflict with Ted, his Hair-Trigger Temper, and his perfectionism when it comes to his job is all foreshadowed in his very first scene, when he’s introduced shouting at Ted to get off the pitch, only to Freak Out when he realises this is his new boss.
  • While trying to fit in during the aftermath of the match in Biscuits, Nate attempts to mimic Roy’s angry rant and mistakenly breaks the glass of the door to the office Ted is in, creating a noticeable crack pattern placed directly over Ted’s back. Visually speaking, Nate has stabbed Ted in the back - while trying to be someone he’s not.
    • Blink and you’ll miss it, but in the following scene during Sam’s birthday party we can see that the door has been repaired and Nate is holding the tape, foreshadowing Nate fixing the damage he’s done.
• Freudian Excuse: Pretty much all of Nate's darker traits - his need for external validation, his belief that harsh criticism genuinely yields results, and his ambition to prove himself - are shown to stem from Nate's strained relationship with his father. It's no surprise the crux of his redemption arc is his finally being honest with his father about his resentments, to which Lloyd deeply regrets and apologises for.
  • To a lesser extent, the show hints that he still carries some mental scars from the team's protracted bullying of him, with Nate experiencing a flashback of said bullying during a panic attack in "Smells Like Mean Spirit".
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: However, judging by Nate's apology to Will, by Season 3 he's nonetheless taking responsibility for his actions.
• Friend to All Children: As well as getting along very well with his niece Nate makes a point of being kind to Henry Lasso, to the point where Henry still clearly adores him even after Nate has jumped ship from Richmond to West Ham.
• Friendless Background: Aside from his relationships with his family, it's clear he had very little social life before Ted showed up. He's thrilled to be included in the Diamond Dogs and receive the players' appreciation.
  • Ultimately this comes to hurt him in a big way: in Season 2 when Ted begins to withdraw due to his own mental health issues Nate clearly has no other real support system in his life and is left feeling increasingly isolated.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Envies Roy and Ted for being the 'face' of the coaching team. He also envies both Roy and the team - who are given things like good tables at restaurants or free coffee machines - for their celebrity influence in Season 2.
• Grew a Spine: Part of his story arc involves Ted slowly bringing him out of his shell and becoming a vital part of the team, before moving to West Ham and learning to stand on his own. His Character Development is a mixed bag in this regard: at the beginning of his arc Nate gradually becomes meaner and more self-centered as he gains more confidence, before moving away from these more unpleasant qualities as his character develops at West Ham. By the end of Season 3 he's shown to be the same sweet guy as he was at the start of the show but with greater confidence in himself: able both to defy Rupert and express his frustrations with his well-meaning but distant father.
• Genius Burnout: Before Ted arrived at Richmond it's implied that Nate was this. Despite having a keen brain for tactics, being a skilled musician, and being outright acknowledged as a "genius" by his father, Nate was nowhere near achieving his full potential as an ignored kitman for the Greyhounds.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Develops one of these as the series goes on.
• Heel–Face Turn: Realises quite quickly after obtaining his dream job at West Ham that you should Be Careful What You Wish For: he remains guilty over how things ended with Ted, his new boss (Rupert) is continually manipulating him, he's isolated from his former community at Richmond, and the people who are around him are shown to only really be interested in Nate's celebrity. Throughout Season 3 Nate goes through a Be Yourself arc in which he becomes more confident in himself rather than others' views of him, which ends up with Nate treating his colleagues with more kindness and beginning a relationship with long-standing crush Jade in the process. This in turn gives Nate the confidence to defy Rupert, express his frustrations with his well-meaning but critical father, and begin repairing his relationships with those at Richmond.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Although disregarded by most of the club, Ted quickly sees that Nate has a keen mind for the game and coming up with winning strategies.
  • Season 3 shows he played the violin as a child, and even after likely years of not practicing still plays beautifully. His father calling him a "genius" may imply he had high aptitude for more than just violin and football strategies.
  • He clearly has a taste for classic musicals: referencing The King and I in a press conference and being familiar enough with West Side Story to correct Ted on a plot point early on in the show (he was an understudy for Anita in an all-boys' school production).
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Nate goes to Trent Crimm with the secret of Ted's panic attacks and assumes that Trent will be a typical journalist who will protect Nate as an anonymous source. He fails to realize that Trent genuinely likes and respects Ted and will gladly put aside journalistic ethics if it means helping out Ted when he's been personally wronged.
  • Even though Ted is nothing but a supportive friend and mentor to Nate, Nate eventually gets the idea in his head that Ted is taking advantage of him and holding him back, leading to him betraying him and becoming manager at West Ham. Even as Ted continues to voice and show support for Nate in his new job, Nate assumes that Ted has some ulterior motive for doing so until Jade finally explains to him that Ted is genuinely happy for him.
  • Despite being completely ignored by the guy when he owned Richmond and his frequent cheating on Rebecca being public knowledge in the wake of their divorce, Nate is easily charmed by Rupert and sees him as a great guy who appreciates him and to whom he owes everything. It's not until Jade voices her reservations about him and Rupert later reveals his plan for both he and Nate to cheat on their significant others with random groupies that Nate finally realizes that Rupert really isn't a good person.
• Improperly Paranoid: His self-esteem issues lead him to massively mistrust Ted, even though it's pretty clear that Ted only wants the best for him.
  • Played With in regards to Nate’s relationship with the team in Season 2. They genuinely root for him and want the best for him, but considering the previous bullying they put Nate through, it’s easier to see why Nate interprets their friendly gestures as mockery.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Has this in spades, particularly throughout Season 2. Nate’s desperation to highlight his own abilities and prove himself goes hand-in-hand with painfully crippling insecurity, to the point where he's unable to acknowledge that other people genuinely have his back.
• Inspirational Insult: A master of these. When he's finally given the opportunity to start coaching he proves to be the exact opposite of Ted's friendly and encouraging style. He affectionately insults the team with Brutal Honesty and riles them up so they'll be more aggressive on the field and focus on winning out of spite.
• It's All About Me:
  • Season 2 sees Nate's need for validation grow to the point where his desire for recognition eclipses everything else, to the point that he starts to disregard other people's feelings.
  • Thanks to his Parental Issues, he's also more worried about Ted withdrawing from him than Ted's serious mental health struggles throughout the season.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • His "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Ted has a whole raft of these, namely:
    • While Nate is in full Never My Fault mode when he blames the players for the failure of the false nine tactic, he's not wrong in this instance—Jan Maas concurs that the strategy is sound, and Richmond ultimately wins the match once the players execute it properly in the second half.
    • While he's clearly focusing on his own tactical skills at the expense of the value of the cultural change Ted has brought to the team, Nate has a decent point in saying that Ted has no business being head coach of a professional association football team. Ted is still clearly unfamiliar with even basic tactics despite having had two years to learn the sport.
    • He's also not wrong in pointing out that he's genuinely earned the right to be on the coaching team, after spending the first season advising Ted and Beard on tactical plays and training drills despite still being a kitman. Season 3 proves this further as Nate steers the West Ham team to the top of the table throughout the season.
    • Finally, while he's lashing out in anger when he says Ted belongs back home in Kansas with his son, there's a part of Ted that clearly agrees with him.
  • Various comments from the other coaches and the commentators suggest that he was certainly accurate in telling Colin that he was a step below the better players on the team for a time (the implication in hindsight being that Colin hiding his sexuality hampered his performance). However, as Nate wasn't saying it as part of a teaching moment but as a rebuff following Colin larking about in training, it still came off as a very horrible moment.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Nate's Character Development brings him to this trope by Season 3. In spite of some dark character traits, he is a fundamentally decent guy at heart who is making an effort to be a better person.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Most of his treatment in Season 2 of Will is this, whether it's criticizing him for trivial matters like using scented detergent or threatening to make his life miserable after he inadvertently embarrasses Nate in front of the team.
  • Betraying Ted would qualify on its own. But Nate goes a step further, telling Ted how Nate is the only reason he's still around, how he doesn't belong in the sport, calling him a joke, and ripping the "Believe" sign in half in a fit of hurt and anger.
  • While it's not quite as baseless as the above two examples given that Colin used to bully him, his treatment of Colin in "Headspace" goes way over the line when he insults Colin's deepest insecurities and says that if Dani and Jamie's skill at football is like them being master artists, Colin is like motel art that gets put up to cover a bloodstain.
• Lack of Empathy: In his darker moments he veers towards this, bullying others in season 2 despite having been on the other end before. It’s clearly not a defining characteristic, however: with Nate supporting both Ted (through his divorce woes and dating problems) and Roy (through his dating problems and anger management issues) in season 1, and apologising for his hurtful actions to Will in season 3.
• Limited Wardrobe: He's almost always wearing warm-up gear. Beard finally inquires about this in "The Hope That Kills You."
  Beard: Quick question: are those the only clothes you own?
  Nate: What this? No, I've got three of these.
• Like Father, Like Son: Like his father, Nate is socially awkward, has painfully exacting standards, and refuses to show vulnerability around others. However, both men also have a creative streak and are fiercely loyal to the women they love.
• Mean Boss: At the start of Season 3 he's a jerk to the employees: dismissing his colleagues' greetings and being a Drill Sergeant Nasty to the players. He appears to grow out of this, however, later buying those same colleagues lunch and trying to chat with them amicably. They worry at first about being in trouble when called to his office, and Nate has to reassure them that's not the case.
• Minion with an F in Evil:
  • Becomes this for Rupert Mannion, who clearly brought Nate onto West Ham to ruthlessly crush Richmond and Rebecca and be someone with whom Rupert could share his selfishly hedonistic lifestyle with. Instead Nate's out the door at the first sign that Rupert wants him to cheat on his girlfriend.
  • Even his Drill Sergeant Nasty routine with the Hammers comes across as this, with 'dumb-dumb line' coming across as less of a devastating put-down and more of a kid's insult.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Comes to heavily regret betraying Ted and to a lesser extent Richmond.
• The Napoleon: He's noticeably shorter than the other coaches and he's got a serious temper on him when he gets riled.
• Narcissist: Throughout Season 2, he interprets everything that isn't glowing praise for him as a slight against him. He singles out one tweet that dislikes him out of hundreds that do, taking it as a personal affront.
• Never My Fault: If Nate's strategies don't work, his go-to reaction is to blame the players for it.
• Nervous Wreck: Nate can very easily become this, descending into complete freak outs where he massively overthinks a problem whenever he's forced to put himself out of his comfort zone (whether it's sharing his ideas with the coaching staff or clarifying his romantic relationship with Jade). It's Played for Laughs, but the show doesn't shy away from showing how Nate's anxieties govern his own self-image.
• Nice Guy: Lost his way in Season 2, but ultimately is a friendly, kind-hearted guy.
• Nice to the Waiter: Nate flip-flops on this depending on where he is in his character arc. Throughout Season 2 he's unkind to Will, and at the start of Season 3 he ignores greetings from staffers and orders them out of his office. However as his character development continues, he improves: defending Taste of Athens after his date insults the place right in front of waitress Jade (which impresses Jade enough to start hanging out with and later date him), and reinforcing his apology to Will by secretly performing all of his duties for him that morning before he even arrives.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: In Season 2, his hair steadily goes gray, which has the side effect of making him resemble legendary (and controversial) manager José Mourinho. According to Nick Mohammed on Twitter, this was intentional.
• Nominal Hero: In Season 2, it becomes clear that Nate never actually bought into Ted's philosophy or the team culture he spent the entire first season creating. He only followed and supported Ted because Ted was the first person at Richmond to ever give Nate attention and the opportunity to be more than a bullied kit manager. Once Rupert gets into his head, Nate has no qualms about betraying the club for what he sees as a better opportunity.
• Not So Stoic: For all that he tries to put himself forward as an uber-competent 'big dog', it's pretty clear that all of Nate's darkest moments in Season 2 come from a place of hurt and anger, and that he's definitely not coping. The Season 3 premiere Smells Like Mean Spirit all but confirms this, showing him spiralling into a panic attack the second a little external pressure (in the form of his first solo presser) comes to rest on him.
• Old Shame:
  • Appears to see his old job as kitman and general dogsbody at Richmond as this, as he gets very prickly when a journalist uses this as an excuse to question why he's got the job of Head Coach at West Ham.
  • His malaproper moment of confusing 'wonder kid' for 'wunderkid' is one of these - unfortunately, given that 'wonder kid' soon becomes an Embarrassing Nickname for him. He learns to lean into it though.
• Pet the Dog: Has more and more of these moments as Season 3 progresses. While he's gone full Drill Sergeant Nasty with the West Ham players, he seems to genuinely want to make things right with Ted, even if he doesn't quite know how, and swallows his pride to attempt to shake his hand after the press conference. He also seems noticeably disturbed by Rupert, the married father of a one-year-old, openly hitting on his assistant and almost immediately loses interest in the woman Rupert has tried to set Nate up with. Later on in the season he begins having better working relationships with his West Ham colleagues, and apologises to Will for his poor treatment of him.
• The Perfectionist: Oh boy, is he ever. Nate exemplifies both the positives and negatives of this trope - he’s one of the hardest working people on the show, honing his plays late into the night, and is shown to be genuinely brilliant at what he does. On the other hand, he’s painfully critical of both himself and others when his exacting standards aren’t met.
• Playing the Victim Card: He initially believes that Ted won't give him credit for coming up with strategies for AFC Richmond. When Ted gives Nate the credit (without prompting), Nate accuses Ted of trying to scapegoat him. In any case, Nate always plays the angle where he's the victim and nothing is ever his fault.
• Prematurely Grey-Haired: Though his age isn't clear, he's unlikely to be any older than his actor's age around 40. Despite this, his hair gradually goes completely grey in Season 2. Given this coincides with Nate's desire to move past his demeaning "Wonder Kid" nickname, its implied this is not a natural development. This could either be Nate dyeing his hair grey, or he had previously been dyeing it black and reverted to his natural color. It could also be both, with him turning it back into a natural partial grey and going further to make it completely that color.
• Poor Communication Kills: Various misunderstandings in Season 2 lead to Nate’s preconceptions about respect and love warp him further and further from seeing how the people around him, namely:
  • Nate equates respect with being earned through shows of strength, so he’s unable to recognise that Roy doesn’t hate him for kissing Keeley because Roy respects him as a decent man who’d never deliberately hurt him or Keeley, instead believing that Roy sees him as weak.
  • Nate sees public validations as the ultimate show of affection, so he’s hurt that Ted doesn’t display his present in his public space, not realising that Ted keeps the present in a private space as a more intimate show of affection.
  • Having already put up with the team’s mockery pre-season 1, he isn’t able to tell the difference between this and their affectionate teasing of his newfound fame.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Ted takes Nate under his wings but eventually gets betrayed by him.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Loves his arts and crafts, has a penchant for musical theatre, and in Season 1 loves being part of the Diamond Dogs because he's always wanted a space to exchange insight and advice about romantic relationships.
• Redemption Demotion: At the end of season 3, he rejoins Richmond not as a coach, nor even back in his old role of kit manager, but as assistant kit manager to Will.
• Reformed Bully: To Will: he's increasingly dismissive and snappish to the new kitman over the course of Season 2, before sincerely apologising following his Heel–Face Turn in Season 3. When the team invite Nate back to Richmond, his first action is to check whether or not Will's okay with his return.
• Rank Up: By the end of the first season, Nate is offered a full-time contract as an official coach for Richmond, and by the end of the Second, he takes over as head coach for West Ham.
• Scare Chord: on the receiving end of one when Coach Beard shows up at his door to apologize to Nate, to forgive him, and offer him a job back with the team. Just like Ted did for him years ago.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Nate ultimately turns his back on a lucrative celebrity lifestyle with Rupert if it means cheating on Jade.
• Self-Serving Memory: As his mental health deteriorates in Season 2, Nate starts remembering things in such a way that make him out to be always correct and in the right while everyone else slighted him. He insists that it was the press who screwed up and dubbed him "Wonder Kid" after his first interview, even though he clearly said the phrase himself (twice) because he didn't know the actual term is "wunderkind".
• Shipper on Deck: While nursing a crush on Keeley himself, he roots for Roy and Keeley to get together and encourages Roy to overcome his own issues so he can make the relationship a successful one.
• Shorter Means Smarter: Is the shortest member of the main cast. He's also acknowledged as a genius by multiple other characters, is a skilled musician and artist, brilliant tactical abilities, strong cultural interests - and an (sometimes unfortunate) gift for spotting the weaknesses in other people.
• Shrinking Violet: After years of abuse and dismissal, Nate is very shy around the gregarious and welcoming Ted, and is shocked when he actually remembers his name, let alone values his opinion. Part of his character growth is learning to deal with the spotlight being on him.
• Shutting Up Now: He often tries to be eloquent and witty, only to realize mid-talking that his joke didn't land or he isn't making the point he was trying to make, and abruptly stops talking.
• Small Name, Big Ego: In the second season, the positive press and social media comments he receives results in Nate believing that his tactical skills are the sole reason for Richmond's success, even though it was clear that it was only a part of it and that things like Ted's motivation skills, Beard's scouting, and Roy's skill coaching were just as important.
• The Strategist: His role as a coach amounts to this. While Ted acts the leader, Beard as his right hand man, and Roy as the one who helps the players with their technique and mentality, Nate is the one who strategizes how to best utilize the players to help the team win. It shows thoroughly when he leaves Richmond; Roy, Beard, and Ted have to fall back on extremely basic formations and strategies without Nate's tactical genius at their backs.
• Straw Misogynist: It's easy to miss, but when Nate mistakenly thinks he's been fired by the club in the Season 1 finale, he confronts Rebecca about it and calls her a shrew.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Played with in Season 2 when he starts bullying Colin, who used to bully Nate in Season 1. Since Colin had already stopped his behaviour and made amends long before Nate turned the tables on him, the revenge just comes across as Nate being a Jerkass, especially since he's also a bully to Will.
• Took a Level in Cynic: In the space of a season Nate’s belief in the team plummets from “I believe this team can do anything” to “it would work if we had players who knew what the fuck they were doing”.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Season 2, it's immediately shown that he's become quite harsh in his new role as a coach. In just the first episode, he initially refuses to let Will, the new kit manager, leave work a bit earlier for his mother's birthday until Ted overrules him, and his first suggestion for handling Dani's yips is to show him his paycheck "for motivation" (implying Dani should just get over it). Ultimately, he gets worse over the following episodes and it leads to him making a full Face–Heel Turn when he lets his ego get out of control.
• The Unfettered: Nate will do anything to get what he feels he is owed, regardless of how he has to act, who he has to betray and who he has to align with.
• Ungrateful Bastard: While Nate is a genuine tactical genius, it's also clear that he'd still be a lowly kit manager who gets bullied by the team and ignored by the management if it weren't for Ted taking an interest in him. Despite this, he outs Ted's mental health issues to the press in an effort to humiliate him and get more recognition for his own skills. Nate himself acknowledges he was this after his Heel–Face Turn and he's reluctant to return to Richmond because of his guilt before talking with Coach Beard.
• Vague Age: Ted and Beard refer to him as a kid on occasion, and he gains the nickname "Wonder Kid" in Season 2, both of which seemingly imply that he's fairly young. However, he also has a considerable amount of gray hair, and his actor is 40, only a few years younger than Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt. His hair is also open to interpretation, as Nate shows a desire to move past his "Wonder Kid", with the gray only appearing after he picks up the name. Whether that means he's repeatedly dying his hair gray or letting his natural color come through is unclear though.
• Villain with Good Publicity: In Season 3, the media treats Nate as the "Wonder Kid", a confident soccer genius who is set to take West Ham to glory. Considering the placement of West Ham in the league tables, he's clearly doing something right.
• Wanting Is Better Than Having: A major part of his Season 3 arc. Nate finally gets the wealth, status, and recognition he's always craved by becoming the manager at West Ham United and leading the team to success. However, once he gets to be a part of the celebrity lifestyle, he finds that it's more superficial than he expected and he struggles to develop real personal connections with everyone else because he doesn't want to forsake his real personal interests and principles. He winds up finding true happiness with Jade, who likes him for his personality rather than his job, and ultimately quits his job when Rupert tries to get him to cheat on her.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Nate's father is an almost impossible man to please and Nate is desperate to gain his approval.
  • In episode 10 of season 3, Nate's dad admits that he just didn't know how to deal with a genius son. He apologizes to his son and they mend fences.
• White Hair, Black Heart: His hair goes completely white over season 2 as he shows more of his unsavory character traits.
• You Are What You Hate:
  • Although he clearly has issues from his father pushing him too hard to overachieve, Nate genuinely shares Lloyd’s view that ‘pressure makes pearls’. Because of this, he ends up being as strict a taskmaster with the Greyhounds and Will (and, it’s implied, with the Hammers) as Lloyd was on him.
  • Frustrations with his own life lead to Nate becoming as much of a bully to Will in Season 2 as the Greyhounds were to him in Season 1.

Dr. Sharon Fieldstone

Played by: Sarah Niles

A sports psychologist the team hires in Season 2 following Dani's traumatic penalty incident.

---

• The Alcoholic: Implied by the large number of empty liquor bottles on her otherwise immaculate kitchen counter.
• Badass Boast: She asks Ted if he's a good coach, and in receiving a yes, she claims to be twice as good as a therapist.
• Broken Ace: She's very good at her job as a sports psychologist, and she knows it. Dani gets back to his cheerful self after one single session with her, and afterwards, several AFC players covet her counselling. That said, she does have her own issues to deal with; she has difficulty opening up to other people about her insecurities, she had a sugar addiction in the past, and it's implied that she also struggles with alcoholism. This is cemented by the fact that she has regular appointments with her own therapist.
• Character Development: During Season 2, she learns that it's okay for her to open herself up to her clients and that doing so helps her patients be more open with their own vulnerabilities.
• Consummate Professional: Is one of the few people who doesn't participate in Ted's usual strategy at immediately creating a close personal relationship, and isn't even remotely disarmed by his sunniness.
• Demoted to Extra: Downplayed and justified. Because she no longer works at Richmond, she appears in a recurring role in Season 3 rather than a main.
• Foil: To Ted. Whereas Ted opts for a sunny outlook and a belief that things will work themselves out, she seeks to find the root cause of issues and actively address them.
• Friendly Address Privileges: Zig-zagged. Although she initially insists Ted refer to her as "Doctor" instead of "Doc," she relents after two episodes. Several of the players she sees also refer to her as just "Sharon."
• Genius Sweet Tooth: Double Subverted. Although she thanks Ted for the biscuits, she ultimately rejects them because she doesn't eat sugary foods; however, this is because she had a sugar addiction in the past.
• Honest Advisor: Serves as one to Ted by giving him her honest thoughts about the team.
• I Resemble That Remark!: When told by her therapist that she uses her intelligence to deflect, Sharon protests, "I do not harness my savantish nature to alienate people and isolate myself! ...Okay, I hear that."
• No-Sell: She is the one person who isn't immediately confused, suspicious, intimidated, or taken in by Ted's trademark cheerfulness.
• Not So Above It All: While she's a Consummate Professional who tries to maintain some distance with her patients, she does agree to join the players for one celebratory drink after they reach the FA Cup semifinals because it's such a big accomplishment. She's also shown relaxing by watching Lust Conquers All in "Man City".
• "Not So Different" Remark: After complaining to her own therapist about how Ted constantly avoids opening himself up with zingers, her therapist points out Sharon does the same thing only with her intelligence instead of jokes.
• Omniglot: She's fluent in at least English, Spanish and French. Justified, since in her specialization she likely has loads of international patients.
• Only Sane Man: She's more confused by Ted's quirks than the other characters.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Front the get-go, she recognizes that Ted has some unresolved mental health concerns and he could use a session with her. However, she doesn't force the issue and simply tells him that he's welcome to make an appointment if he feels he needs one, even as he keeps declining the offer. Eventually, he agrees that he really should have one and he comes to her on his own.
• Secret-Keeper: Season 3 reveals that she was this for Colin during Season 2, as she was the only person at Richmond he told about his sexuality.
• Sherlock Scan: The first time Ted tries to win her over with homemade biscuits and questions about her favorite books, she immediately recognizes it for what it is and comments on it.
• Sleek High Rise Apartment: She lives in a luxury appartment with a magnificent view over a large park. When Ted sees it for the first time, he commends the benefits of "corporate housing".
• The Stoic: Very stonefaced, and doesn't show or even hint at any emotions, even when her patients are crying or getting angry at her.
  • Not So Stoic: Gradually reveals that she, like everybody else, has her own personal issues that she speaks to her own therapist about, and that she's still learning to handle.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She takes her job as a psychologist very seriously and is no-nonsense when she's on the clock. But she's still a kind person overall.
• Therapist in Therapy: She has her own struggles with loneliness and alcohol, which she takes care of in regular appointments with her own therapist.

Keeley Jones

Portrayed By: Juno Temple

A model who is dating Jamie Tartt at the beginning of the series. Rebecca later hires her to help with the team's Public Relations.

---

• '90s Hair: She often sports high ponytails with scrunchies, as well as other '90s girl band staples.
• Absurd Phobia: She is freaked out by the pimentos in green olives, gagging when she removes them to make martinis for Sexy Christmas with Roy.
• Broken Pedestal: She becomes a strong ally to Rebecca when the businesswoman protects her from a dangerous photograph getting out to the press. She's naturally devastated when she learns Rebecca was the one who arranged for the photo to be taken in the first place.
• Celebrity Is Overrated: Keeley's time as fodder for vicious tabloid papers has given her a fairly dim view of fame as a whole and she outright tells Nate any benefits are not worth the loss of privacy and emotional damage.
• Downtime Downgrade: She and Roy break up offscreen between Seasons 2 and 3.
• Dude Magnet: As of late season 2, three of her coworkers express attraction for her—her boyfriend Roy, naturally; Jamie, her ex, tells her he still has feelings for her; and Nate, who by his own account isn't used to female attention, kisses her when he mistakes her friendliness for something else. She also regularly runs into fans of her old Page 3 girl days.
• Easily Impressed: Keeley gets distracted and delighted by Higgins's anecdotes, such as mentioning she wishes she could write fiction or read lips. She's also very impressed by Sharon's bike.
• Famous for Being Famous: Her initial career followed the stereotypical WAG path of lowbrow modelling gigs and taking care of her boyfriend's PR.
  Keeley: I'm sorta famous for being almost famous.
• Friend to All Children: She gets along extremely well with Roy's niece Phoebe.
• Girls Love Chocolate: She sets up a chocolate fondue fountain for her and Roy's Christmas and takes the time to drink some directly from the fountain.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's blonde and a very sweet person.
• Has a Type: States that she started dating a twenty-three-year-old footballer at eighteen, and now at almost thirty is still dating a twenty-three-year-old footballer. It's this realisation that makes her break the cycle by dating Roy who - while still a footballer - is significantly older and more mature than her previous boyfriends.
• Hidden Depths: Keeley is aware that she's getting older in a business that values youth and is conscious of still dating cocky young men in her thirties and is making an effort to work around or change both things. She is also repeatedly shown to be much smarter than she looks, being a very skilled PR director and businesswoman in general.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: While she's not exactly a hooker, her former "modeling" career is shown to be less high-fashion and more on the revealing page-3-girl side. She's also one of the kindest people on the show.
  The "Ussie" Guy: Keeley has been a seminal figure of my teenage years.
• Intergenerational Friendship:
  • She's at least a decade younger than Rebecca, but they quickly become very close friends.
  • She also develops a friendship with the much younger Phoebe after she begins dating Roy.
• Mirror Character: To Nate. They both start the show overlooked and underestimated with big ambitions for their future who are taken under the wing of their boss (Keeley by Rebecca and Nate by Ted) and end up leaving Richmond for better things. However, while Nate's relationship with Ted's deteriorates due to Poor Communication Kills, Keeley retains her strong relationship with Rebecca and is able to continue making use of Rebecca's advice long after she leaves Richmond. In Season 3 both characters continue similar paths - both get the fame and success that they wanted, but ultimately (and, in Keeley's case, temporarily) have it taken away while trying to live their life on their own terms and refusing to compromise their values.
• Motor Mouth: Once she gets revved up, she'll ramble at length and have entire conversations with herself before anyone else can get a word in edgewise.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Keeley shares her first name with English model Keeley Hazell; both started their careers as cover girls for magazines. Incidentally, Hazell herself is involved in Ted Lasso as both a writer and an actress; she plays Rupert's latest wife, Bex.
• Nice Girl: Keeley is very kind and good-natured.
• Odd Friendship: The talkative and energetic model with the cold, manipulative Rebecca. They fit together naturally, as Keeley's warm nature thaws Rebecca's barriers, while Rebecca helps Keeley find new professional paths in life.
• Opposites Attract: She's a glamorous, vivacious, cheerful model who makes friends at the drop of a hat, Roy's a quiet, reserved, sullen football player who hates most people he doesn't know and isn't much nicer to many of those he does. They make a really good couple.
• Page Three Stunna: At the start of the series, she's been a glamour model for a good number of years. However, she finds it unfulfilling and moves into publicity and public relations, fields that allow her to use her intellect.
• Pitbull Dates Puppy: The grumpy, bad-tempered and antisocial Roy and the bubbly, outgoing and sweet-natured Keeley start dating and make a great couple.
• Queer Establishing Moment: Although she has been Ambiguously Bi since early on, Keeley was proven to be so when she kisses her boss, Jack.
• Sleeping with the Boss: After a few drinks, Keeley kisses Jack in her office. She recoils, but Jack reassures her it was OK and kisses her back. Jack’s silhouette can later be seen removing Keeley’s shirt.
• Smarter Than You Look: Her style can be described as somewhere between a chav, a Spice Girls reject and Fran Fine, yet she is very witty and has a brain for marketing.
• Stereotype Flip: Keeley is a pretty, blonde, peppy model. However, instead of being shallow and silly, as many similar characters have been written, she is clever, confident, thoughtful, and kind.
• Weakness Turns Her On: She uses Roy's tearful resignation speech as masturbation material because it's one of the rare instances of him showing vulnerability.

AFC Richmond

General

Like a Renaissance painting portraying masculine melancholy.

Tropes that apply to the players as a whole:

---

• Agent Mulder: All of them are superstitious to some degree, regardless of cultural background or how much they claim they're not. Truth in Television, since superstitions are said to be highly prevalent among athletes.
• Crowd Chant: They have one that they do as a team, in addition to the individual ones the fans do for them.
  We're Richmond till we die! We're Richmond till we die! We know we are, we're sure we are, we're Richmond till we die!
• Dumb Jock: They're professional football players, and with the exceptions of Roy (when he was a player) and Sam, they all come across as pretty dim. Truth in Television as most real life professional football players only have a basic education due to them being recruited into professional academies at young ages and spending the majority of their time training.
• Family of Choice: Since a lot of them are living far away from home, their relationship with one another, as well as with the coaches, managers, and owner of the club are so close they're practically familial.
• Group-Identifying Feature: They all love fancy sneakers to the point where Isaac has to instruct them to not wear them at Mr Welton's funeral, and Rebecca is moved when they all show up in proper dress shoes.
  Colin: I love Air Jordans. I'd fuck a pair of Jordans!
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: A Gender-Inverted example. Although they're not particularly fratty, they spend most of their personal time drinking and partying. When the team does Secret Santa, literally everyone gets each other booze except Bumbercatch, who knitted Colin a scarf.
• Hidden Depths:
  • While they tend to act like Dumb Jocks most of the time, they're not all complete idiots. A lot of them have surprising insights into culture, art, and even politics.
  • They're all talented dancers, if their performance of "Bye Bye Bye" (as a gift for Dr. Sharon) is any indication.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • They're a good-hearted bunch, but the fact that they are a group of fabulously wealthy male celebrities means they're not always in touch with the concerns of other people: rolling their eyes at the concept of non-branded shoes and not understanding why it's important to protect the privacy of their exes.
  • In Season 2 they also tend to treat Nate as a kid brother made good even once he’s been promoted to coach: treating him with less deference than they do fellow coaches Roy, Beard or Ted and occasionally teasing him in practice. It’s obviously meant with love, but the obvious difference in their attitudes clearly makes Nate feel disrespected at Richmond. This is particularly obvious in Headspace when several of the team gently rib Nate for his newfound fame and his malapropism in the post-match interview. Considering how some of the Greyhounds were seen mocking the notion of Nate becoming "our new coach", it clearly lands poorly with Nate.
• Multinational Team: The team includes Nigerian, Dutch, Mexican, French, Welsh, Jamaican, Zimbabwean, Bolivian, Canadian, and Swiss players, as well as the ambiguously Eastern European Zava.
• Nice Guy: Once Ted breaks Jamie's hold over the locker room and gets Roy onboard with his philosophy, they all prove to be very kind and friendly.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Inverted. All of them are skilled enough at soccer to play professionally in the prestigious English professional ranks. However, as good as they are compared to the layperson, they are completely outclassed by the truly elite Premier League squads like Manchester City. The exception is Roy, who spent most of his career as a star player for the highly-ranked Chelsea and only wound up at Richmond after he began Feeling His Age.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: ZigZagged. Season 3 shows that homophobia is an issue in the Richmond locker room, although the homophobia in question is some fairly mild, ignorant banter rather than actual malice, and they all immediately accept Colin when he comes out to them. The team is somewhat split on the issue of misogyny, with most of them not seeing the problem with hanging onto nude photos of ex-girlfriends while a vocal subset of players argues that such photos should be deleted out of respect for the women's privacy. While the whole team eventually gets on board with deleting their exes' photos, they only do so after learning that Keeley, who they personally know and like, was victimized by a lewd video leak. Richmond's progressiveness also seems to depend on the social issue in question, as they were all very quick to support Sam's pro-environment, anti-imperialist protest in Season 2 - but in general, the more a social issue affects someone they care about, the more effort they’ll put into understanding it.
• Secret-Keeper: The whole team becomes this for Colin after he comes out to them but remains closeted to the general public.
• Shipper on Deck: They get very emotionally invested when one of their own meets a potential soulmate. All of them root for Sam and his mysterious Bantr match, and they're collectively devastated about Roy and Keeley breaking up.
• True Companions: Grow into this by the second season, highlighted by the way the entire team crowds around Sam as he's messaging his Bantr match and celebrates as one when he gets a date.
• Undying Loyalty: By the second season, all of the players have this for Ted, to the point where after Ted's mental health struggles get leaked to the press they all want to track down the whistleblower and make them pay with their blood.

Sam Obisanya

Played by: Toheeb Jimoh

Young player newly recruited from the Nigerian league.

---

• Acquainted in Real Life: In 2x06, he is revealed to be the charming anonymous Bantr match Rebecca has been texting with back and forth.
• Amicable Exes: When Rebecca says she needs to work on herself and breaks off their relationship he holds no ill will and repeatedly demonstrates quiet, respectful fondness from a distance.
• Ascended Extra: While Sam was one of the more prominent players in Season 1, he was a Satellite Character whose role revolved entirely around how he was treated by Ted, Roy, and Jamie. In Season 2, he gets more focus as an individual character.
• The Baby of the Bunch: In Season 1, he's the youngest, least experienced team member and frequently looks to the other players for guidance. Averted in Season 2, where he has become a skilled, confident player and a leader on the team.
• Beware the Nice Ones: After Ted's panic attacks get leaked to the press, Sam is just as eager to hunt down the rat and make them pay with their blood as the more aggressive players like Jamie, Isaac, and Colin. Then in Season 3, he's furious when he learns what Nate did to the "Believe" sign and takes part in Richmond's Unnecessary Roughness against the West Ham players.
• Black and Nerdy: As he tells Rebecca, he isn't interested in curses because he's Nigerian, he's interested because he loves Harry Potter. Ted also gives him Ender's Game as a gift, and in season two it's noted that his favourite movie is Ratatouille.
• The Cutie: Easily one of the sweetest of the soccer team.
• Fake Guest Star: He's not billed amongst the main cast in Season 2, even though he's given a lot of focus on par with them with several storylines. This is averted in Season 3, as he's Promoted to Opening Titles.
• Hidden Depths: He asks to endorse products for environmentalist issues, and based on how he prays before matches, is a devout Muslim. His in-depth knowledge of Michael Jordan's career also suggests he's a big basketball fan.
• My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Sam is a proud Nigerian, but he also has no qualms about openly accusing the government officials of corruption when he's made aware of their transgressions.
• Nice Guy: Absolutely one of the friendliest and sweetest guys at Richmond.
• Nice to the Waiter: At the gala, he makes it a point to learn the photographers' names. He's also literally nice to the waiter, as he individually greets everyone that works in his restaurant by name when he comes in to request a table for him and his father.
• Not So Above It All:
  • When discussing endorsement opportunities with Keeley, he tells her he'd like to endorse products that are issue-oriented such as pro-environmentalism. He then adds he'd also like to endorse Air Jordan sneakers.
  • Despite normally being the most mature and grounded member of the team, he's as shocked as everyone else at the prospect of not wearing sneakers to Rebecca's father's funeral.
  • When Jamie tries to take the captain's band from him after he's chosen to fill in for Isaac, he pretends to go along with it for a moment before cheerfully flipping Jamie off.
• Out of Focus: Despite his actor being Promoted to Opening Titles in Season 3, Sam actually gets less focus than he did in Season 2 as he doesn't feature in any of the season's main plots.
• Satellite Character: In Season 1, he's one of the more prominent players, while receiving less character focus. However, his own improvements as a player demonstrate how Ted's methods are working.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: In Season 2, he refuses to participate in any advertising for Dubai Air after learning that their parent company Cerithium Oil is actively causing major environmental damage to his native Nigeria.
• Sleeping with the Boss: He makes a love connection on the anonymous dating app Bantr, not realizing that the woman he's talking to is his boss Rebecca. They have a brief affair when they find out.
• The Smart Guy: In contrast to most of the Richmond players, Sam is intelligent, wise, and well-read.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • In Season 1, Sam starts the season poorly due to homesickness and his struggles to fit in with the club, but after the club comes together to celebrate his birthday, he begins playing better and by the end of the season he feels comfortable enough to exasperatedly say "We know, Roy" when his short-tempered captain complains about Jamie again.
  • In Season 2, he takes another one after being slotted into Roy's old position following the latter's retirement. The public starts to take notice and he's now considered one of the team's stars.
  • And finally in season 3, he takes over as team captain while Isaac is benched due to being red carded.
• Vehicle-Based Characterization: Drives a Tesla Model S, the electric car befitting a staunch environmentalist like him.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: He shows a great deal of intellectual and emotional maturity for a 21-year-old, which is also why his Age-Gap Romance with Rebecca isn't portrayed as squicky.

Dani Rojas

Played By: Cristo Fernández

"Football is life!"

A Mexican striker who has recently recovered from a pre-season injury, Dani is one of Richmond's best players.

---

• The Ace: Called as such by the team and is a very talented player, with Jamie being his closest comparison.
• Animal Lover: Coos over animals such as pigs, and is devastated when he mistakenly kills the greyhound Earl due to an errant penalty kick.
• Ascended Fanboy: While most of Richmond's players were fans of Zava before he joined the club, Dani stands out from the others with his borderline idolization of the guy.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Not even Dani is immune to being a frightening individual:
  • After learning what Nate did to the "Believe" sign at halftime of the West Ham match, Dani gives Nate a seething Death Glare while returning to the pitch. Nate is visibly unnerved by it.
  • When he's picked to play for Mexico's national team in "International Break" and it's revealed that Mexico will be playing against Canada, he takes it extremely seriously and becomes downright vicious towards his Canadian teammate Zoreaux as a result. He openly tells Zoreaux that they're now enemies, and he even makes a kick that breaks Zoreaux's nose during the game itself. He thankfully returns to his usual self when he returns to Richmond, but Zoreaux is still visibly unsettled.
• Bilingual Bonus: Dani occasionally speaks in un-subtitled Spanish.
• Break the Cutie: This occurs in the season 2 premiere, when a freak accident during his penalty kick ends in the death of Earl, the team's greyhound mascot. Dani is devastated and blames himself for what happens, and it takes a session with Doctor Fieldstone for him to recover.
• Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: One gag reveals that he not only believes Paddington Bear is a real being, but that he's responsible for his official Twitter account.
• Character Catchphrase: He's prone to parroting "Fútbol is life!"
• Cloudcuckoolander: Coos over animals, believes Paddington Bear is real, and wants to see a tulip in Amsterdam. Not a whole field, that would be too much. Just one tulip.
• The Cutie: Ted describes him as a "joyous, raven-haired golden retriever."
• Dumbass Has a Point:
  • When the Richmond players are calling out Nate's poor treatment of Colin, Dani's assertion that Nate was acting like a 'wounded butterfly' comes across as a little odd. However, given how Nate's struggles with self-esteem and a neglectful father are clearly informing his bad behaviour, Dani's observation seems right on the money.
  • As the players debate whether to delete nude pictures women have sent them and the issue of ownership laws comes up, Dani is the one who points out that the issue is not what the law says, but what the morally right action is.
• Establishing Character Moment: Within all of two minutes of appearing on screen, you know basically everything you need to know about Dani. He runs onto the pitch, chanting his own name and running in circles in sheer excitment, thanks his coaches for the opportunity, high-fives his teammates, declares "Football is life" several times, scores an incredible goal and immediately compliments Sam on the pass that set it up.
• Foil: To Jamie. Jamie is a talented player who bullies other people and cares more about the financial benefits that come with being a successful footballer. Dani is a talented player who treats everyone with friendliness and kindness and only cares about playing the game of soccer itself. This is illustrated by their personal chants: Jamie's post-goal "ME!" is a narcissistic boast, while Dani singing his own name as his catchphrase is an endearing, exuberant quirk.
• Glass Cannon: He's one of the team's top scorers, but in his introduction episode he is quickly injured during practice, after coming back from another injury he sustained before he could even properly play. He's also noted to have deficits in his defensive play.
  Nate: Your defense is death. The only person I've seen lose a man more often is Carrie fuckin' Bradshaw.
• The Heart: One of the most unerringly optimistic players in the team, which is emphasised by his Character Catch Phrase.
• Jerkass to One: A temporary example. Dani's kindhearted exuberance drops completely in season 3 around Zoreaux when their respective national teams play against each other, and he treats his teammate with coldness and abuse — even remorselessly breaking Zoreaux's nose on the pitch. When international play ends Dani's cheery attitude returns, even though Zoreaux remains terrified of him.
• Keet: He's almost always very cheerful and enthusiastic, particularly when it comes to soccer (as made evident by his Character Catch Phrase, "Fútbol is life!"). According to him, he doesn't drink coffee since his mother said he was "born caffeinated".
• Massive Numbered Siblings: According to his actor's AMA on Reddit, Dani has 12 brothers and sisters.
• Mama's Boy: Whenever he speaks about his family, it's usually about his mother and always in positive terms.
• Meaningful Name: Downplayed. Dani's football boots are a striking shade of red befitting his last name, which means "red" in Spanish.
• More Popular Replacement: In-Universe, all of the Richmond players and Nate like him more than Jamie because he actually treats everybody with respect and kindness while being equally as skilled.
• Nice Guy: An Exaggerated example, even more so than Ted. While Ted can occasionally get angry and prove to be a case of Beware the Nice Ones, Dani doesn't have a mean bone in his body and is always upbeat and friendly to everyone. When Nate criticizes his defense during his roast of the team, Dani doesn't get offended and concedes it's a fair criticism.
• Nice to the Waiter: When Dani first arrives, prior to Nate's promotion, he shakes Nate's hand as well as Ted and Beard's and treats him like a valued colleague from the start, in contrast to the rest of the team's harassment.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Dani is largely based on Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, another Mexican striker with a joyously exuberant temperament. The writers gave him Chicharito's #14 in tribute. In "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea", Dani even scores a goal with his face by accident, much like Chicharito famously did in his debut for Manchester United.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He's a ridiculously nice guy, so when he turns into a ruthless Competition Freak while playing for Mexico's national team, Thierry (who's playing for Canada on the opposing team) is genuinely scared for his safety.
• Patriotic Fervor: Dani is so devoted to his home country that whenever he plays for Mexico's national team, he becomes the polar opposite of his usual sunny disposition and is ruthless on the pitch.
• Pokémon Speak: Alternates between this and his Character Catch Phrase "football is life!" It helps him serve as a Foil to Jamie, who chants the word "me" after scoring a goal due to his self-centered and egotistical attitude, while Dani chants his own name out of sheer joyful exuberance.
• The Pollyanna: ALWAYS upbeat and cheerful. When Keeley asks him what sort of endorsements he'd like, he says all he wants to do is spread joy to others. The only times his demeanour slips is when he accidentally killed a dog, and when he was breaking in new dress shoes.
• Polyamory: After we previously see him in bed with two women in season 2, the series finale shows him openly living in a three-way relationship.
• Really Gets Around: In Season 2, he's shown sleeping in his bed with two gorgeous women next to him. He also expresses concern that because he's a professional footballer, deleting all the nude images women have sent him over the years could take days - or even weeks. He's with two women at Coach Beard's wedding as well.
• Remember the New Guy?: He joined the team months prior to his first on-screen appearance, with his midseason introduction being handwaved by Beard saying he was injured and away recuperating.
• Spirited Competitor: His Character Catchphrase is "Fútbol is life!".
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: He's normally the happiest and nicest person in the world. When it comes to international football, however, he turns cold and vicious.
• Token Religious Teammate: A devout Catholic, Dani prays on a rosary before matches, crosses himself when he's stressed, and occasionally prays aloud in rapid-fire Spanish.
• Unknown Rival: He briefly picks up one in Jamie, who is the team's other ace player in Season 1. Dani came in at a time when Jamie was getting pushed out of the team due to his bad behaviour, and while Jamie tried to prove otherwise, Dani was just that good to make him expendable. Ultimately, Jamie winds up recalled to Manchester City anyway and when he returns to Richmond in Season 2, his attitude has improved and the two become friends.
• Verbal Tic: Aside from his Pokémon Speak and "Fútbol is life!" catchphrase, Dani seldom lets a conversation go by without calling someone "amigo".

Colin Hughes

Played By: Billy Harris

Welsh member of Richmond.

---

• Ascended Extra: After being a minor character during the first two seasons, Season 3 brings him to the forefront with his struggles with his sexuality being one of the season's major plotlines. His actor is even Promoted to Opening Titles.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • He drives a Lamborghini, but at times feels like it's "way too much car" for him and is seen struggling just to drive it out of the team's parking lot.
  • The team roast at Everton reveals that Colin's playing style focuses on fancy footwork that appears impressive but isn't actually that effective.
• Armored Closet Gay: Downplayed. He reluctantly partakes in the occasional homophobic microaggressions happening in the locker room, he and his "pal" Michael have created an elaborate rehearsed story about how they pick up ladies together, and he pretends to be single and heterosexual for a Bantr promotion. That however doesn't stop him and Michael from making out in well-lit alleys right near the colleagues he's trying to hide from, and he stays silent and stone-faced when the rest of the team talks about how attractive they find a female model rather than pretending to agree.
• The Big Damn Kiss: At the end of Season 3, he impulsively kisses Michael in the middle of the pitch after winning a match.
• Butt-Monkey: From being headbutted by Roy to nearly drowning in the repaired showers, Colin is simply the unluckiest and most laughable player on the team. Even Nate feels confident taking shots at him by the end of the first season.
• Coming-Out Story: His Season 3 arc revolves around Colin's struggle with being a closeted gay man in the homophobic world of professional football and his ultimate decision to come out to the team.
• Consistent Clothing Style: In the first two seasons, Colin almost always wears a polo shirt buttoned or zipped all the way to the top when not in uniform. Season 3 gives him a more varied style, though he still wears a few fully-buttoned collared shirts.
• The Ditz: He's not the brightest member of AFC Richmond. When the guys are putting in valuable items for a bonfire to ward off the ghosts in the treatment room, Colin puts the keys to his Lamborghini. A baffled Coach Beard asks him how he's getting home.
• Drives Like Crazy: Freely admits that his Lamborghini is "way too much car for me" after Sam says that he feels excited but also nervous whenever Colin drives him somewhere. When we see him drive it, it takes him multiple tries just to get out of the club parking lot, and people can be heard yelling at each other to get out of the way once he makes it to the street. It's not just an issue of the Lamborghini being too much to handle, as Season 3 shows that he has similar trouble navigating his Noble M600 out of the driveway.
• Everyone Has Standards: While he's one of Jamie's sycophants at the start of Season 1, even he is put off by Jamie's obnoxious, self-absorbed behavior on the pitch in "Tan Lines".
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Introduces his partner Michael as his wingman who helps him pick up women, and makes a joke about masturbating to famous women's leaked nude photos.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With his best friend, Isaac. They're incredibly close, to the point where Isaac can accurately assess Colin's taste in men a day after they started talking openly about Colin's sexuality.
• Hidden Depths: He has quite a lot going on beneath his Dumb Jock exterior:
  • Arlo White's commentator notes reveal that he's a big Drake fan and knows every lyric to all of his songs, a talent which he shows off in "The Signal".
  • His Instagram posts are all about Welsh Independence.
  • He knows enough about art history that his first association for Picasso and Gauguin is "pedophiles" rather than merely famous artists.
  • Judging by his repeated meetings with Dr. Sharon and need for a mantra to remind himself that he is "not a piece of shit," he has some serious mental health and self-worth issues.
  • When Nate tries to brazen out his malapropism from his first official press conference Colin is the only one of the team to nod in agreement, despite the fact that he was teasing Nate for his new nickname the previous day. The implication is that he recognises Nate's embarrassment and is making an effort to humour him in order to help Nate save face.
• I Have No Son!: He says that after Cardiff City FC were relegated while he was a member, his grandmother refused to speak to him until she died.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: He admits to Trent that he's hesitant to come out because he just wants to be treated like any other footballer and he knows people will make his sexuality into a big deal if they find out.
  I don’t want to be a spokesperson. I don’t want a bunch of apologies. All I want is for when we win a match, to be able to kiss my fella the same way the guys get to kiss their girls.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: A retroactive example. At the beginning of the show, he's a stereotypical Jerk Jock who torments Nate because he, Jamie, and Isaac find it funny. In Season 2, it's revealed that he struggles with deep feelings of inadequacy about his skill as a football player, implying that his bullying of Nate was a way to make himself feel more secure about his place on the team.
• Innocently Insensitive: Doesn't realise how embarrassed Nate is about his 'Wonder Kid' malapropism and ribs him for it at training, earning Nate's ire. To make matters worse, in Season 1 Colin was also one of the players who openly mocked the idea of Nate ever being their coach, which probably made the joke land even worse.
• It's All About Me:
  • He's more concerned about Dani using all the hot water than he is about the fact Dani is doing so because he's showering fully clothed while having a mental breakdown over having just accidentally killed a dog with a penalty kick.
  • When Nate gets annoyed with Colin's ribbing at training, Colin's appears more bothered by the idea that Jamie and Dani got away with similar teasing than the idea that he might have upset Nate.
  • He vocally defends the idea of keeping nude photos from exes because he's more concerned about his own memories than other people's privacy. Even allowing for the possibility that Colin has a sentimental attachment to his exes' photos (as they're likely the only reminders he has of relationships he couldn't take public), he's still pretty callous about the potential damage of keeping such photos.
• The Load: Downplayed in Season 2. He's still on the team's starting lineup, but he's repeatedly shown to make mistakes on the pitch,^note Among other examples: one of the very first lines of the season establishes that Colin was responsible for the other team scoring the equalizing goal in a match Richmond otherwise would have won, a scene mid-season shows him badly missing a goal during training, and both Nate and Jan Maas point out Colin's poor playing at different points. and Nate unfavorably compares Colin's playing against that of his teammates. In Season 3, he's the one cut from the starting lineup to make room for Zava, but later massively improves on the pitch once he comes out to the team and is no longer burdened by the need to blend in.
• Must Have Caffeine: Inverted; according to him, he doesn't drink anything with caffeine in it because his body is a temple—or as he puts it, "more like a church in an airport".
• Odd Friendship:
  • Ditzy footballer Colin and intellectual journalist Trent Crimm unexpectedly hit it off due to both having spent much of their lives in the closet.
  • After months of being a Jerk Jock to him in the locker-room, mouthy Colin and soft-spoken Nate start one of these in the second half of season 1: with Colin celebrating with Nate at the post-match blowout in Liverpool and carrying him out of the karaoke bar at the end of the night. Sadly, Nate's descent into toxic insecurity and Colin's innocent insensitivity means this doesn't last long.
• Opposites Attract: Downplayed. Colin has dedicated his whole life to football and is dating a man who couldn't care less about the sport.
• Patriotic Fervor: He's a proud Welshman and uses his Instagram to advocate for the country becoming an independent sovereign state.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Downplayed. He is a huge fan of Air Jordans and can flawlessly rap along to Drake, but he still acts like a white Welshman.
• Queer Establishing Moment: When told about Bantr, he points out that the spelling is like Grindr, a gay dating app, prompting a meaningful look from Keeley and over a year's worth of fan speculation. The theory is confirmed in the episode "4-5-1", which opens on Colin seeing off his boyfriend before practice.
• Reformed Bully: He and Isaac bully Nate at the beginning of the series, but after Ted changes the club culture and Roy gives them a telling-off, they stop listening to Jamie and begin treating him better.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Jamie has to explain to Colin that unlike the special edition sneakers he usually buys at early morning releases, Colin can buy regular dress shoes at any time of the day.
• Secret Relationship: By necessity, he keeps his relationship with his boyfriend Michael a secret before he comes out to the team.
• Straight Gay: As would be expected from a professional footballer in the closet, he doesn't exhibit any stereotypical gay mannerisms or behavior. When he finally does come out to the team, everyone is legitimately surprised.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Played with in Season 2. Colin finds himself getting bullied by Nate, who he used to bully in Season 1; however, Colin still comes across as the victim because he had already Taken A Level In Kindness and made things right with Nate before Nate turned the tables on him.
• Those Two Guys: With Isaac at the start of the series, when the two of them are defined by their roles as Jamie's lackeys and Nate's bullies. They fit the trope less later on as they each get more individual characterization and separate storylines, though they still spend a lot of time together.
• Took a Level in Badass: His skills on the pitch greatly improve after he comes out to the team, no longer having his anxieties over being found out weighing him down. He even gets called up to the Welsh national team during the next International Break.^note Although it's possible he played for them even before he Took a Level in Badass, as there are relatively few Welsh players in top-flight football like the Premier League; the real 2022 Welsh national team was made up of predominantly Championship players. Also he was benched for a fair bit of the season to make room for Zava, so unless his play was on the level of an Ace in the brief time he was back in the starting lineup, chances are he had the inside track due to previous National Team play.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He becomes much nicer and more friendly once he and Isaac stop bullying Nate.

Isaac McAdoo

Played By: Kola Bokinni

A player for AFC Richmond who Roy eventually makes his vice-captain.

---

• A Father to His Men: An interesting example, as Isaac is the same age as most of the team. However as Richmond's Captain he fills this role: both being incredibly overprotective of the team and encouraging/ordering them to shape up on issues like leaked nudes and basic funeral etiquette.
• The Big Guy: Definitely the burliest member of the Greyhounds.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Both he and Colin acknowledge that this is a flaw of his, and Colin says that it's part of the reason he never came out to Isaac. He also immediately tells the entire team that Roy and Keeley have broken up before they have a chance to break the news themselves.
• Character Development: While it's more subtle compared to the major characters, his character arc over the first two seasons sees him grow from a carefree Jerk Jock bully into a responsible team leader that the other players look to for guidance.
• Dumb Muscle: He's easily the beefiest member of the team, and while he's not nearly as ditzy as Colin, he's not the brightest bulb either. He apparently can only write his name with one particular pen and skips the number 8 when counting to 12.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He knows it's not good form to show up to a funeral wearing anything other than a proper suit with a shirt, tie, and dress shoes and he orders the team to dress accordingly at Rebecca's father's service. It's implied that he's also the only one of them who actually owned dress shoes before he gave the order.
  • Upon learning that several female celebrities had their private nude photos and videos leaked, Isaac refuses to view them and tells the other players they shouldn't either as that media was the women's private property and not meant for them. He then orders everyone to delete any they might have on their devices to protect the women from hackers. Notably, he exhibits this attitude even before he learns that Keeley was among those affected.
  • While he's upset when he discovers Colin is gay, it's not because he's a homophobe, but because he's hurt that Colin didn't trust him enough to tell him.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Colin. Even though Isaac can't openly say the words, he makes sure that Colin knows he loves him.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He clearly has a strong interest in wider culture. He's something of a Movie Buff: considering The Age of Innocence to be Martin Scorsese's best work and getting deeply engrossed in The Iron Giant. Meanwhile his Wicked Cultured Rousing Speech to force his teammates to decide where they're going to eat for dinner could have come straight out of a speech by Shakespeare or Marlowe.
    Isaac: Enough! We are riven by this crossroads! Is this it? Should we huddle around the laptop for a movie night? How else do we proceed? How doth we channel this lack of compromise? This dissension? This rage?
  • His teammates consider him to be a legend at cutting hair and save the one haircut per season he offers them for special occasions.^note Black men being skilled self-taught barbers actually isn't uncommon, as until fairly recently licensed hairdressers were rarely required to know about African hair.
    Dani: I'm not using mine until I marry. Or I get circumcised.
  • He's studied kinesics and knows enough about the subject that he's able to figure out that Roy and Keeley broke up simply by observing their body language.
  • He's very observant and has a good understanding of those around him. When Colin refuses to answer a question about which teammate he finds the most attractive, Isaac only has to think for a moment before correctly guessing that it's Bumbercatch.
• Hot-Blooded:
  • After Roy makes him his vice-captain, Isaac starts to exhibit a similar temperament. When the team sees Jamie being interviewed on TV and describes himself as Richmond's most important player, Isaac chucks a chair at the screen in anger and breaks it.
  • When he hears a fan in the stands hurl a homophobic slur at Colin, he's immediately defensive of his friend and rushes up to throttle the fan. It takes many stewards to finally pull him off.
• Informed Ability: Played for Laughs with his haircutting abilities. The team considers an "Isaac cut" such a big deal that they make it into a borderline-religious ceremony, but the only time we see him give a haircut, it ends up being a barely noticeable trim. Yet somehow this haircut is so notable that even Arlo White positively comments on it during his broadcast.
• Innocently Insensitive: Cheerfully suggests to Sam that the reason his anonymous Bantr match has gone silent might not be because she's lost interest....but because she could have been hit by a bus.
• Minor Major Character: Even after becoming the team captain, he remains a relatively minor character.
• Mirror Character: To his predecessor Roy. Both are Hot-Blooded, alpha-male types with hidden insecurities who take their responsibilities as captain incredibly seriously. They are also both The Stoic, whose struggles to accurately communicate their feelings causes some issues with their relationships (Roy with Keeley and Isaac with Colin).
• Rank Up: Once Roy is unable to perform his duties as Team Captain, he passes the armband to Isaac, who ably steps up to lead the team on the field.
• Reformed Bully: He and Colin bully Nate at the beginning of the series, but after Ted changes the club culture and Roy gives them a telling-off, they stop listening to Jamie and begin treating him better.
• Serious Business: He only grants each of his teammate one haircut per season, which gets turned into a Mundane Made Awesome ritual.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: When not in his training or match kits, Isaac wears very stylish suits and streetwear. Even when dressed up as Santa Claus, he wears a suit that is clearly made of high quality materials and tastefully accents his costume with fashionable sunglasses and a medallion.
• Team Dad: He's good at getting the team to focus on what's really important when they're distracted or despairing.
• Those Two Guys: With Colin at the start of the series, when the two of them are defined by their roles as Jamie's lackeys and Nate's bullies. They fit the trope less as the series goes on, particularly once Isaac is named captain, but they still hang out frequently.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Without Jamie's influence in the locker room, he becomes much nicer to Nate and morphs into an effective leader the team looks to.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Rolo caramel chocolates. When Keeley asks him what sort of product he'd like to endorse, he answers Rolos. Only Rolos.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Being a defensive back, Isaac doesn't often take corner or penalty kicks, but he can kick harder than anyone on the team. Unfortunately, his aim needs work, as his first corner kick ends up breaking Higgins' office window and his first penalty kick just barely makes it under the crossbar before going through the netting, into the stands, and breaking someone's nose.
• Verbal Tic: Frequently peppers his sentences with the word "bruv".

Thierry "Van Damme" Zoreaux

Thierry "Van Damme" Zoreaux

Played By: Moe Jeudy-Lamour

Canadian goalkeeper for Richmond.

---

• All Men Are Perverts: When the team debates how to spend their free evening in Amsterdam, he's the one who insists they go see a live sex show.
• Awesome McCoolname: Invoked. Inspired by Zava's unconventional naming philosophy, he rebrands himself as "Van Damme" in season 3. His environment's reactions range from quiet acceptance to mild eyerolls.
• Cool Mask: After Dani breaks his nose, Van Damme is forced to wear a medical facemask while playing. To apologize, Dani eventually gives him a black version, which everyone acknowledges as much cooler. This prompts Van Damme to change his name to "Zorro."
• The Ditz: Even by the standards of his Dumb Jock teammates, Zoreaux is a bit of an airhead. He walks into Higgins' neighbor's house for the Christmas party despite arriving at almost the same time as Richard, Dani, and Jan Maas (all of whom went to the correct address), tries to return a sponsorship product for cash, and asks Isaac if bright red Yeezys are appropriate funeral attire.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": For most of season 3, he insists on being called "Van Damme" after Zava had inspired him to choose his own name. In the series finale, he goes back to his given name, as Dani gifting him a cool black mask for his nose fracture has made him embrace people constantly mispronouncing it as "Zorro".
• Last-Name Basis: Like Bumbercatch, he's generally referred to by his last name among the players and coaching staff. It's a rather ironic case, considering their pronunciation troubles.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: Thierry Zoreaux is referred to by his last name, and has to correct people who pronounce it "Zorro" and not "Zo-ROW".
• No Sense of Direction: He cheerfully admits to Higgins that he walked into his neighbor's house by mistake.
• Translator Buddy: A Quebec native, he's the only one who can understand Richard's French and translates his rants for the rest of the team.

Richard Montlaur

Played By: Stephen Manas

French member of Richmond.

---

• Everyone Looks Sexier if French: While several members of the team live the high life, Richard is noted to be able to land numerous supermodels.
• French Jerk: Downplayed: much like the rest of the team he's a sweet guy, but he still avows that as a Frenchman he'd rather die than eat Dutch food.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He's a talented saxophone player, as shown in "Carol of the Bells".
  • Also in "Carol of the Bells", a throwaway line^note After arriving to Higgins' house with foie gras, champagne, and fancy cheese, he says, "And this time, you try it," seemingly to Higgins. implies that he's one of the few players who went to Higgins' Christmas parties even before Ted made it socially acceptable to do so.
  • "Smells Like Mean Spirit" reveals he has an extensive knowledge of fine wines. He even corrects Ted when the latter uses the term "expensive wines", pointing out that a wine's price point isn't necessarily indicative of its quality.
  • Despite his loose sexual morals, he is still a practicing Catholic, as he is seen joining Dani in crossing himself in reverence after witnessing the accidential slander of a nun.
• Patriotic Fervor: One of his defining characteristics can be 'French and proud of it'. To the point where, when the team are deciding what to do on their night out in Amsterdam, Richard's suggestion is to take a train to Paris. And when Dani suggests they go out for Dutch food, Richard loudly declares he'd rather die than do that.
• Out of Focus: In Season 2, he has no lines after "Rainbow" despite being one of the more prominent players up to that point.
• Really Gets Around: Be it parties, galas, or Higgins's Christmas party, he is seen with a different lady at every event that calls for a +1. By his own account he has slept with multiple supermodels and when the team collectively agrees to delete all the nude photos they got from their past conquests, it takes him an entire afternoon.
• Running Gag: The team (with the exception of Zoreaux) not understanding Richard when he speaks in French (which happens often).

Moe Bumbercatch

Played By: Mohammed Hashim

Midfielder for Richmond.

---

• Ascended Extra: After being a background character in Season 1, Season 2 has him get some lines during team scenes. Season 3 fleshes out his characterization a bit more by giving him lines about his skills and interests.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Implied by Arlo White's game notes, which reveal he gets easily distracted by shiny things.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Implied by the fact that his reaction to Ted's panic attacks being leaked is to yell "Follow the money!" and his suggestion for a fun night out in Amsterdam is going to the International Court of Justice at the Hague to "poke around" and "ask some questions."
• Crazy-Prepared: Good at knitting, knowledgeable about electrical repair, and a believer in eating without chewing to conserve energy on the off chance that a class war breaks out.
• Dramatic Irony: He shouts "Follow the money!" after the Independent publishes an article about Ted's panic attacks, not suspecting that the story was leaked not for financial gain but because of a petty vendetta.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Colin (who is gay) and McAdoo (who is not) agree that Bumbercatch is the fittest amongst the Richmond players.
• Hidden Depths: Season 3 reveals that he knows a lot about electrical work and he puts it to good use by repairing the electrical sign in Sam's restaurant after it is vandalized.
• Last-Name Basis: Unlike most of the players, he tends to be addressed by his last name.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: He is very upset that Jamie hit on his mom. In front of his dad.
  Jamie: Yes, I did, I'm very sorry about that. And give Janet me best, yeah?
• Real Men Wear Pink: He knits as a hobby and gives Colin a scarf he made for his Secret Santa gift. Colin is impressed by the quality.
• Suddenly Ethnicity: Played for Laughs. After three seasons of him being all but outright confirmed to be British (as he has a British dialect), "International Break" suddenly reveals that he's a Swiss national and a member of their national football team. When Ted expresses surprise at this, Bumbercatch is confused and points out it was obvious.

Tom O'Brien

Played By: Tom Hendryk

Richmond's other goalkeeper.

---

• The Big Guy: He's the largest member of the team.
• Butt-Monkey: He loses his starting position after tearing his upper hamstring. Making things worse for him is that Ted keeps referring to his injury as a "torn butt".
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Ted refuses to refer to his injury as anything other than a "butt tear".

Jan Maas

Played By: David Elsendoorn

Richmond's newest player in Season 2. He's from the Netherlands.

---

• Brutal Honesty: Jan is not one to beat around the bush, though according to Sam this is because he's Dutch (which is Truth in Television) and not because he's a jerk. His first scene is him in the locker room nonchalantly pointing out after a disappointing tie that he played perfectly, while Colin, who let the other team score the equalizing goal, played poorly. However, it's later shown that he's not above criticizing himself in the same way, immediately admitting to a mistake he made in a later game and taking full responsibility for it.
  Ted: Hey, if Jan Maas says it, you know it's the truth, right?
• The Comically Serious: Much of the humor surrounding him comes from his Brutal Honesty and confusion by AFC Richmond's quirky environment.
• Cultural Posturing: When Jamie explains a spacing concept he learned from Pep Guardiola, Jan Maas proudly interjects that Pep first learned it from Johan Cruijff, then admonishes Jamie for pronouncing his last name as "Cruyff".
• The Eeyore: While he's not a depressed person, his honest personality often comes across as pessimistic to the other players.
• Full-Name Basis: Everyone calls him Jan Maas.
• Germanic Depressives: Technically he's Dutch, but his hometown (Groningen) is right near the German border and he fits the image of the stern Germanic hulk to a tee.
  Sam: Hey, guys, Jan Maas is not being rude. He's just being Dutch.
• Historical Character's Fictional Relative: Jan is the cousin of Dutch DJ Martin Garrix.
• Honest Advisor: Whenever Ted needs the team to give their opinion on something, Jan Maas will be the first one to offer their honest thoughts, which Ted appreciates.
• Innocently Insensitive: He genuinely doesn't mean to be insulting and is often surprised when other people take his Brutal Honesty personally.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's not so much a "jerk" in so much he's a guy without any tact. But ultimately Jan is an honest guy who is loyal to his new team and wants them all to succeed.
• Naïve Newcomer: As Richmond's newest player in Season 2, he's confused by a lot of Ted's quirks and the vets have to bring him up to speed.
• Not So Above It All: Just like all of his teammates, he's a Shipper on Deck for Roy/Keeley and is dismayed by the news of their breakup.
• Phrase Catcher: Anytime he says something the other players don't want to hear, their go to response is "Shut the fuck up, Jan Maas."
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His comment to Nate at Rebecca's dad's funeral about Nate's suit being a gift from Ted being infantilizing is one of the major factors that drive Nate to betray Ted and leak his secret panic attacks to the press.

Zava

Played By: Maximilian Osinski

A superstar striker that Richmond signs in Season 3.

---

• 10-Minute Retirement: In the series finale, he pulls another Zlatan and joins a Major League Soccer team in LA because the Californians share his love for avocados.
• The Ace: Once he takes the field for Richmond, he immediately shows that he really is as good as everyone says he is and singlehandedly takes the club from 17th to 3rd in the Premier League table.
  • The season finale suggests that he is equally good at avocado farming, judging by the massive one he sends Richmond.
• Badass Bystander: He's not only a famous athlete, but he's also the star of a viral video called "Veggie Dog Vigilante", which shows security footage of him dealing with a supermarket robbery by casually walking up to a masked robber holding up a cashier, headbutting him, and nonchalantly stepping over the robber's unconcious body after paying for his groceries.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: While his ego is as big as expected for someone with his talent, once he joins the team he proves there's a lot more to him than just being a star footballer, including: strong spirituality, open-minded parenting, unusual hobbies (including avocado farming), and an intensely happy marriage. He is also, despite the ego, largely not a distraction in the locker room.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: After he joins the team he essentially reveals himself to be a hippie with a ton of money.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Rebecca calls him out on being this. Namely, he's a world class talent who continually signs with clubs that already have deeply talented rosters so he will be ensured success regardless of how well he plays individually. Indeed, once Richmond starts going on a losing streak, he decides to retire rather than stick it out.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's very eccentric and has a huge ego, but every football club is willing to put up with his antics because he's just that good. Even Roy, who normally detests people with big egos, can't help but respect him.
  Roy: Sure, he's nuts, but he'll help us win games.
• Challenge Seeker: Despite plenty of more prestigious offers, he chooses to play for Richmond because AFC doesn't have high-profile players he can hide behind, and instead provides an opportunity to prove he hasn't passed his prime.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Aside from his ego, a lot of his behavior also stems from him just being an odd and eclectic individual in general. Roy even calls him "nuts".
• Dare to Be Badass: How Rebecca (unintentionally) convinces him to sign with Richmond. She accuses Zava of coasting on his reputation by signing with teams that are already favored to win and tells him that if he is really as great as he claims to be, he should be able to lead even a small, talent-starved team to victory.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: His skills are head-and-shoulders above that of the rest of Richmond so the club showers him with amenities including his own corner of the dressing room, featuring four lockers, a TV, and a recliner. The rest of the team only make do with one locker each and a plain bench.
• Even the Guys Want Him: The Richmond players drool over him and talk about how attractive they find him.
• Everyone Has Standards: He may have a big ego, but he also believes in fair play and is very disturbed when the other Richmond players play dirty against West Ham.
• Family Man: For all his ego and eccentricities, Zava is both a Happily Married man and the devoted, open-minded father of at least four children.
• Granola Guy: He practices meditation, has his locker room spot filled with spiritual paraphernalia and owns an organic avocado farm he's really proud of.
• Happily Married: Combined with Single-Target Sexuality. Zava says that the only woman he pays any real attention to is his wife and he sings her praises in the locker room, which moves all the other players.
• It's All About Me: His ego is enormous and he has a way of making every situation revolve around himself. He even has a tattoo of himself celebrating a goal on his back. That being said, he is one of the nicest renditions of the trope. As mentioned, he'll make everything revolve around himself, but he is genuinely compassionate and supportive of the people around him and will never say a cross word about anyone. But he'll remind you how awesome he is (and he'll prove it on the pitch too without fail).
• Living Legend: He's widely revered by the entire football world, with Richmond's players' reactions to his signing being more akin to fanboys than peers.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • His look, ego, chaotic transfer history, and surprisingly wholesome family life are a blatant reference to Zlatan Ibrahimović. His actor also cited Eric Cantona and Robert Lewandowski as influences.
  • Whereas Zlatan is an outspoken Catholic, Zava's spiritual practice bears a strong resemblance to that of NFL quarterback and fellow man bun aficionado Aaron Rodgers.
  • His usage of the Lotus Position when he is sitting in his locker calls to mind Manchester City striker Erling Haaland, who also famously uses it as a goal celebration.
• Non-Specifically Foreign: He speaks with a vaguely Eastern European accent, but his exact nationality is unclear. He's shown speaking Polish phrases a few times and his firstborn child is named after a Polish Easter celebration, heavily implying he's either from there or one of its neighboring countries.
• No Sense of Personal Space: He randomly gets very close to people during introductions or deep chats. Because he seemingly does it arbitrarily, people never see him coming, making it more intimidating.
• Nice to the Waiter: He goes out of his way to treat Will with respect, as he does with all kit managers, due to his own past of working as a ball boy as a youth.
• Only One Name: Everyone only refers to him as Zava, with no indication whether it's his first or last name.
• Open-Minded Parent: He allows his kids to choose their own names once they are old enough if they wish to do so. His eldest child renamed themselves "Smigus-dyngus".
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: When Richmond goes on an extended losing streak and faced with the prospect of losing another one, Zava quits football entirely and leaves Richmond in the lurch on match day, no less.
• Single-Target Sexuality: He really, really loves his wife Christina and claims that every other woman looks like a featureless smudge to him.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: From afar, he comes across as an aloof egomaniac and a Glory Seeker who constantly switches clubs and leagues in pursuit of new trophies. But once he joins Richmond, he proves to be considerate to the coaches, players, and staff, albeit in a slightly self-centered way.
• Third-Person Person: As shown in his first press conference, he occasionally displays hints of this.
  Zava: Zava will play for Richmond.

Will Kitman

Played by: Charlie Hiscock

Nate's replacement as the kit manager following his promotion to coach.

---

• Butt-Monkey: Takes on this role from Nate as well as his old job. Though it's worth mentioning Nate is usually the only one who puts Will in this role.
• Foil: To Nate. While Nate was a quiet guy who was ignored and abused by everyone during most of his time as kit manager, Will is an upbeat individual who is treated as a valuable member of the club thanks to Ted's influence. Additionally, while Nate is an insecure man with No Social Skills and Daddy Issues, Will is comfortable in his own skin and has an active social life with a girlfriend and loving family. Their differences are best shown when Isaac leads the team in placing their hands on the "Believe" sign during the Brentford match. Nate thinks the gesture is stupid while Will thinks it's awesome.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": The credits and a Freeze-Frame Bonus in "Big Week" reveal that his last name actually is Kitman.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Nate seems to consider him one, but it's shown that Will does his job as asked and Nate tends to nitpick his work by doing things like criticizing him for using scented detergent on the team's towels.
• Nice Guy: Will is a friendly chap who is always polite to everyone and enthusiastic about his job.
• Replacement Flat Character: Nate's evolution beyond the constraints of his (initial) "kit man" role define his character arc, but Will lives very cheerfully within them.
• Tagalong Kid: Played with. Will is actually 25, around the same age as many of the players, but they nevertheless treat him like a kid brother by including him in things like Isaac's haircuts where he acts in a supporting role.

Friends and Family

Florence "Sassy" Collins

Played By: Ellie Taylor

Rebecca's childhood best friend and sporadic hookup of Ted.

---

• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite her bubbly nature and unapologetic humor she's actually an accomplished child psychologist. Rebecca calls her, not quite unbiasedly, "brilliant", and first time she crosses paths with the team, she happens to be in town because she got invited to speak at a conference.
• Childhood Friends: She's been Rebecca's best friend since Year 7 (the equivalent of sixth grade in North America).
• Everyone Has Standards: She has no qualms about hooking up with Ted when he's in an emotionally vulnerable state, but she also takes the professional ethics of being a psychologist very seriously. Thus, she's appalled when she learns the man Ted's ex-wife is now dating is actually their former marriage therapist. She also turns down Ted's suggestion that they upgrade their relationship from Friends with Benefits because she recognizes he's not in the proper headspace for a real relationship.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Like Ted, she's one of the only people who doesn't fall for Rupert's charms and knows just how vile a person he really is. And this was even before Rebecca divorced him. She also comments about how unethical it is for Ted's ex to be dating their former marriage counsellor. And Ted didn't even mention that this therapist was also just Michelle's therapist for a while.
• Friends with Benefits: Over several run-ins with Ted through Rebecca, her and Ted's relationship turns into a regular affair. Unlike him though, she is perfectly happy keeping it that way.
• Glamorous Single Mother: Newly divorced, mother of a 12-year-old girl, who has no trouble showing up at her old bestie's suite and instantly winning Keeley over with her beauty and confident attitude.
• Has a Type: Rebecca's mother points out that she has always had a thing for "wounded" men. She seduced Ted at the height of his divorce blues and went right back to hitting on him at Mr. Welton's funeral, shortly after another of his panic attacks. In Season 3, she zeroes in on him again after the trauma of his divorce resurfaces and his panic attacks return. But it seems that Sassy is a bit self-aware as well, because she refuses to go on a date with Ted when he asks her in Season 3, citing that while they're both messes, she's had longer to work on her mess, so she's less of one than him. Essentially, she recognizes her thing for wounded men, like Ted, but she has no desire to get into a relationship with one who hasn't done more work on themselves, though she lets Ted down as kindly as she can.
• In-Series Nickname: Sassy, which she's almost exclusively called by everyone except Rebecca's mother Deborah, who calls her by her real name, Florence. Ted takes it further by nicknaming her "Sassy Smurf", likely due to the similarity to the minor character Sassette Smurfling.
• The Nicknamer: She gave Rebecca the nickname "Stinky" in Year 7, refers to Rupert as "Ol' Grey Walnuts" and "Decrepit Shitbag", and shortly after meeting Ted, she nicknames him "Marlboro Man".
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: According to Rebecca, the one time Florence didn't have something to say is when she caught Rebecca's father in bed with another woman.
• Too Much Information: She happily gives intimate details about the night she spent with Ted in Liverpool, to Ted's intense discomfort and Rebecca's disgust.
  Ted: [Joking about Nora] Is she mine?
  Flo: Ted, we had sex, like, six months ago!
  Ted: Right, right...bad math.
  Flo: And if memory serves, you finished on my—
  Ted: Ahh! Blah! Whee! Whoo! Yeah! No need to get into the science of it all, y'know, in front of the boss!

Nora

Played By: Kiki May

Sassy's teenage daughter, and Rebecca's goddaughter.

---

• Fangirl: She's a huge fan of Sam, more so after he leads the team in protest against Cerithium Oil and Dubai Air, and is implied to have a Precocious Crush on him.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Initially looks quite shocked to find out that Rebecca is dating Sam, whom she has a celebrity crush on, but quickly gets over it and congratulates her.
• Little Miss Snarker: She's 13 years old and has a sharp, sarcastic sense of humor.
• Younger Than They Look: She looks like she could be in her late teens thanks to her height and weight.
• Vocal Dissonance: She has a surprisingly deep and husky voice for someone so young.

Phoebe O'Sullivan

Played By: Elodie Blomfield

Roy's young niece (the daughter of Roy's sister), whom he frequently spends time with while her mum is working.

---

• Ambiguously Absent Parent: Her mother is Roy's sister and Roy only refers to her father as a "living piece of shit". Phoebe later mentions her parents split when she was four, but her father's current whereabouts and relationship, if any, to her are still unknown.
• Animal Lover: She wants to grow up to be a veterinarian who cares for injured wild animals.
• Girly Bruiser: Adorable little Phoebe once got red-carded for elbowing an opponent in the neck during a match, of which she and her uncle are very proud. She also successfully did a header that hit Ted in the nose hard enough to make his nose bleed.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Phoebe is mostly an archetypal girly girl, but she also plays youth football and she takes after her uncle while playing on the pitch. She also frequently plays a game called "Princess and Dragon" with her uncle where she plays the dragon.
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: Her uncle's foul mouth is rubbing off on her and this gets her in trouble at school.
• Morality Pet: She's one of the main ways in which we see Roy isn't as grumpy and ill-tempered as he first seems.
• Spoiled Sweet: Roy dotes on her and gives her around £1,000 per month in Swear Jar money for his many cusses in front of her, but she remains a sweet Cheerful Child.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior:
  • In season 2, she becomes obsessed with drawing extremely realistic portraits of women's breasts.
  • When Roy and Keeley announce their break-up, Phoebe takes it all in stride and says that the break down of her parents' relationship has taught her that nothing is permanent.
  • Roy's sister mentions that one of Phoebe's favorite holidays is Perchtenlaufen, the German holiday where people dress up as evil spirits and roam the streets in order to scare winter away.
• Wise Beyond Her Years:
  • In "Carol of the Bells" she says that her new rescue cat "rescued us" (referring to her and her mother), and notes that she regularly does breathing exercises to manage stress.
  • When being told about Roy and Keeley's breakup in "Smells Like Mean Spirit", she says that it's natural for big career changes to put a strain on relationships, and that it's not as big of an adjustment as they were only together for a year. She also clearly notices that they aren't on the same page, and tells Roy he's being stupid once they're alone together.

Henry Lasso

Played By: Gus Turner

Ted's son who lives with his ex-wife, who frequently communicates with him remotely from Kansas.

---

• Amusingly Awful Aim: After Mae gives him darts to play with at the pub, he accidentally hits Paul in the arm. Downplayed since he's a child and this only happened once.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: At one point, when Ted is talking to him about coaching (subtly paralleling it to parenting), Ted realizes Henry checked out at some point because he was drawing a robot. He also forgot about his dad still being on FaceTime once he opened the drone Ted got him for Christmas.
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: Henry employed this sort of language when he threw a tantrum when he was younger, and Ted threatens to copy him if the Richmond team doesn't stop speaking cryptically around him.
• Cheerful Child: Initially, he resembles Ted in demeanor, and doesn't seem upset or disappointed in the wake of his parents' divorce or his father's absence. However, this is subverted in Season 3 as the effects of his parents living in separate countries and his mother beginning a new relationship have started to take a toll on him.
• Children Are Innocent: Ted shields Henry from understanding what the word "wanker" means by explaining its "a man who likes to be alone with his thoughts", and hasn't yet told him that John Lennon and George Harrison of The Beatles are dead (since he asks Ted to take a picture with them if he sees them in Season 1). Henry also seems oblivious to adult manipulations, such as Jamie being nice to him in order to stick it to his father, or Jake buying him a gift because he's trying to get his girlfriend's kid to like him. Downplayed in Season 3, as he watches an R-rated movie (by accident) and has been watching CNN after his dad falls asleep, implying he's starting to grow up a bit.
• Console Cameo: Frequently makes these by FaceTiming Ted.
• Entertainment Above Their Age: Accidentally saw the R-rated It (2017) on the plane to England because a neighbor was watching it, and became temporarily afraid of sewers because of this.
• Free-Range Children: Downplayed, but Henry takes the plane to England and back to Kansas to visit Ted for the summer after his parents' divorce. However, he has an adult chaperone him to the plane.
• Like Father, Like Son: Henry is just as much of an optimistic Nice Guy as his dad, using gifts to cheer people up and using some of the same rhyming catchphrases as him.
• Toy-Based Characterization:
  • In Season 1, Henry sends Ted a collection of his army men toys to "keep him safe" while he's away coaching in England. Ted and Henry also talk about building with Legos together. This shows Henry and Ted's relationship to be a strong one.
  • Before leaving for Kansas in the Season 3 premiere, he gives his father a Lego trophy, symbolizing his desire to see his dad help AFC Richmond win the championship.
• Wise Beyond His Years: In "Smells Like Mean Spirit", Ted mentions that Henry decided to face his fear of sewers by visiting a sewer, which the Richmond players say is very smart of him. He also points out that Nate being part of a different team now doesn't mean Ted doesn't still care about him, and that, even if winning isn't everything in life, Ted still has to at least try to win the championship.

Michelle Keller (formerly Lasso)

Played By: Andrea Anders

Ted's wife, later ex-wife, who still lives in Kansas.

---

• Amicable Exes: Played with. Michelle never seems to blame Ted for anything that went wrong in their relationship, even trying to love him the way she did before. They also never fight in front of Henry, and Michelle encourages Henry and Ted to be in each others' lives. But she also pushed Ted away prior to the divorce and struggles to be supportive at times, even when he is going through a crisis.
• Console Cameo: Frequently makes these by FaceTiming Ted.
• Parent with New Paramour: Downplayed. In "Smells Like Mean Spirit", Henry reveals to Ted he got a present from Jake, "mommy's friend". While this implies they get on well, he doesn't seem to realize what's actually going between Jake and Michelle yet.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Michelle's "friend" turns out to be Dr. Jacob Bryanson, who was not only her therapist at one point, but also hers and Ted's former marriage counselor.

James Tartt

Played By: Kieran O'Brien

Jamie's father, who walked out on his family when Jamie was a toddler and later forced himself back into his life when his talent became apparent.

---

• Abusive Parents: He walked out on Jamie and his mother when Jamie was very young, only to come back in the picture when Jamie started getting attention for his athletic skills. To this day, the man berates Jamie any time he does something on the pitch that doesn't meet his standards, even going so far as throwing a shoe at his head in the season 1 finale, indicating the abuse was physical as well. Jamie later confesses to Roy that James also took him to Amsterdam's red light district to lose his virginity when he was only fourteen years old. Everyone who is a witness to the way he verbally and physically treats Jamie in season 2 is rightfully horrified by his behavior.
• The Alcoholic: Implied by the fact he's clearly drunk when he shows up in Richmond's locker room at Wembley and is shown in what looks like a rehab facility in Season 3.
• All Take and No Give: He gladly takes the prestige and ticket privileges that come with being a professional footballer's father without supporting him at all.
• Aww Look They Really Do Love Each Other: Season 3 shows that deep down he ultimately does care about Jamie, as he is shown watching him on TV with pride as Richmond defeats Man City. The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue in the finale also shows that the two of them are taking steps to mend their relationship.
• Entitled Bastard: He's quite impatient about pressing his son for VIP tickets and does not accept being denied access to the Wembley pitch, even after being a complete ass to Jamie right beforehand.
• Evil Counterpart: His gang is one to the Pub Regulars. They're both trios consisting of two white guys and one black guy, are passionate about football, and can be aggressive. The main difference is that James' group is horribly, horribly obnoxious when not being outright violent, not a single one of them is nice like Paul is, and they lack someone like Mae to reign them in. He's also a counterpart to Ted, as they're both father figures, but James is clearly an evil black hole of selfish spite whereas Ted is the All-Loving Hero.
• Hypocrite:
  • He berates Jamie for giving up the chance to score the winning goal against Richmond, despite it winning Man City the game. It appears he's more interested in Jamie pursuing his own glory than the team, yet he keeps supporting Man City once Jamie returns to Richmond permenantly. It was never about the team or Jamie's talent; he just wanted an excuse to bully his son whom he despises, which he does again when he loses while playing for Richmond.
  • He dismisses the talents of the other AFC Richmond players while it's clear that he himself never became a professional footballer.
  • During and after the cup semi-final, he is openly scornful of AFC Richmond even though he only got to go to the match because he got free tickets from them.
• It's All About Me: Invoked upon Jamie, which explains a lot about his complexes. James berates his son whenever he's a team player instead of attempting to score goals himself, even if it wins them the game. To James, football is merely a tool through which Jamie gets to prove how great he is as an individual player, not a team sport.
• Jerkass: Not only does he constantly criticize Jamie when he underperforms, but he also dismisses the rest of Richmond's players as a bunch of "amateurs". And despite the fact Richmond is his own son's team, he still refuses to root for them to win against Manchester City, and shows up in the locker room just to gloat and insult his son.
• Kick the Dog: Aside from being a horrible father, he can't stop himself from being rude to other stadium visitors and the security at Wembley. He also rubs Richmond's loss to Man City in the players' faces.
• Lower-Class Lout: His boorish behavior, unkempt appearance, and the fact one of his friends eats bugs in exchange for money heavily suggests he's one of these.
• Parental Abandonment: He walked out on his family when Jamie was young and didn't come back until Jamie began to show promise as a footballer.
• Significant Haircut: Season 3 shows him in a rehab facility with his hair and beard neatly trimmed, indicating that he's trying to clean up his act.
• Sports Dad: He really only cares for Jamie's soccer skills and probably would have never come back in his life if he hadn't become a talented player.
• Terrible Trio: To his son's match at Wembley he shows up with his two equally obnoxious best mates.
• Ungrateful Bastard: He's been enjoying all the perks of his son's success but still treats him horribly and doesn't see an issue with doing so.

Georgie

Played By: Leanne Best

Jamie's mother, who was responsible for most of his upbringing.

---

• Absurdly Youthful Mother: Her youthful appearance suggests that she was fairly young when she had Jamie.
• Good Parents: She's shown to be a caring and loving mother to Jamie even though he's now a grown adult. The only real knock against her is that she allowed James Sr. back into their lives when Jamie's soccer talent became apparent, a decision which she clearly regrets.
• My Beloved Smother: Georgie is extremely loving towards Jamie, to the point their physical affection creeps Roy out.

Ola Obisanya

Played By: Nonso Anozie

Sam's father who still lives in Nigeria.

---

• Big Fun: He's a large and jovial guy (Nonso Anozie is 6 ft 6) who quickly endears himself to everyone at Richmond when they meet him.
• Good Parents: Sam's happiness and well-being is his top priority. It's this reason why he loves that Ted is Sam's manager, because he knows Sam is in good hands with him. Tellingly, Sam names his Nigerian restaurant, Ola's, after him.
• So Proud of You: His reaction after Sam's protest results in Cerithium Oil being ordered to stop operating in Nigeria.
• Undisclosed Funds: "Inverting The Pyramid of Success" reveals that he invested in Bitcoin back in 2009. Depending on how much he invested and how long he's kept it, he could have savings in the thousands or even millions.
• Unseen No More: He finally appears in Season 3 when he comes to London to visit Sam and check out Sam's new restaurant.
• The Voice: Most of the time, he never physically appears in the show, as he still lives in Nigeria. Instead, the audience gets to hear him when he is on phone calls with Sam.

Jane Payne

Played By: Phoebe Walsh

Beard's on-off girlfriend.

---

• Babies Ever After: The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue in the finale shows her visibly pregnant with Beard's child at their wedding.
• Characterization Marches On: When she's introduced, she comes across as a level-headed Brainy Brunette who enjoys chess and gets frustrated when Beard wants to continue their mental chess game when she wants to go dance. She soon turns into a master manipulator who forces Beard onto a sado-masochistic emotional roller coaster and makes everyone else feel deeply uncomfortable.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She once followed Keeley to her home so she could interrogate her over whether Coach Beard is having an affair with Ted. In "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea", Beard mentions that she still feels "threatened" by his and Ted's relationship.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Beard apparently views her as this, claiming that she makes everything more interesting when they're together.
• Meaningful Name: She's an awful girlfriend to Beard, and her last name is pronounced exactly like the word "pain".
• Nightmare Fetishist: She has a thing for funerals, and even has Beard include her in Rebecca's father's funeral via Facetime just so she can see if the casket is open.
• Rhyming Names: Her first and last names rhyme with each other.
• Smart People Play Chess: Beard and her play verbal games of chess visualizing the board in their heads as they call the moves.
• Yandere: She alternates between acting very jealous and possessive and extremely affectionate towards Beard.

Lloyd Shelley

Played By: Peter Landi

Nate's father, who's emotionally distant with him.

---

• Abusive Parents: An unintentional case. While Lloyd did love and care about Nate growing up, his poor communication skills resulted in him being borderline emotionally abusive to Nate. This has continued into adulthood, as shown when he refuses to acknowledge Nate's success at the FA Cup quarter-final in favor of advising him to keep his ego in check. Eventually, Lloyd finally realizes what he's done to his son and apologizes to him for making him feel unloved. The show never shies away from the damage that Lloyd's stern parenting did to Nate, but nonetheless emphasizes that it was never intentional and that it's possible for the pair's relationship to be mended.
• Doting Grandparent: For all his faults, he's a very loving grandparent to Nicole's daughter Sophia.
• Freudian Excuse: It's suggested that many of his poor communication skills stem from his own upbringing.
• Happily Married: He and his wife differ in their approach to parenting their son, and Maria is shown clearly getting exasperated by Lloyd's obliviousness. Nonetheless, it's clear that the two are very happy together.
• Hidden Depths: Like his son, he has a creative side. When he wanted to ask Nate's mother out, he did so by making a specialized map for her.
• Jerkass: Unintentionally, but Lloyd was still incredibly harsh with Nate throughout his life. Luckily he realises this and apologizes.
• Jerkass Realization: After Nate quits West Ham and becomes The Shut-In, Lloyd reflects on how he treated his son growing up and realizes that his efforts to encourage his talents left him with a lot of emotional baggage. After a heart-to-heart, they reconcile and are on better terms than ever.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Hearing Nate express how much Lloyd's treatment hurt him prompts Lloyd to recognise the damage he did to his son and their relationship growing up. Happily this realisation prompts a rapprochement between the two.
• Parents as People: Lloyd is a good man at heart, but his different upbringing and inability to connect with Nate strained their relationship and left Nate with a lot of Parental Issues.
• Profanity Police: Like many older parents, he isn't thrilled about hearing Nate swear.
• The Stoic: Hinted at: although he's sensitive enough to have made his wife a beautiful piece of art as a romantic gesture to ask her out, the entire family knows he'd be furious if Nate ever saw it. The implication is that Lloyd is uncomfortable with the idea of showing perceived weakness in front of Nate, a trait that unfortunately he passed onto his son.
• Would Hurt a Child: An ambiguous case. According to Nate, he once told both Nate and his childhood sweetheart that they could do better than the other one. The two were eight years old at the time. However, given that Nate is shown to have misinterpreted a lot of things Lloyd told him growing up due to Lloyd's stoicism and poor communication skills, such as interpreting Lloyd's instructions to keep practicing the violin to continue his skill growth as Lloyd telling Nate he hates his violin playing, this is likely an another example of that.

Deborah Welton

Played By: Harriet Walter

Rebecca's mother, with whom she has a complicated relationship.

---

• Bourgeois Bohemian: Implied by the fact that her husband always wins her back by buying her an expensive, environmentally-conscious gift.
• Parents as People: She clearly loves Rebecca and tried to raise her well, but it's obvious that her flightiness and constantly forgiving her husband for his cheating have contributed profoundly to Rebecca's own issues.
• Prefers Proper Names: She's the only one to call Flo/Sassy "Florence".
• Relationship Revolving Door: Every couple of years, she decides to leave Paul, only to take him back a few weeks later. According to Rebecca, the two of them have been doing this for her entire adult life.

Paul Welton

Played By: N/A

Rebecca's father, who she believes is a bad husband to her mother.

---

• Bedroom Adultery Scene: A variant. His daughter, rather than his wife, is the one who walked in on him in bed with his mistress.
• The Ghost: He's mentioned several times but is never seen onscreen, even before his death in late Season 2.
• Parents as People: His relationship with Rebecca was permanently damaged by his cheating, but it's shown that he also loved her a great deal, would do anything to make her laugh, and religiously followed AFC Richmond to support her accomplishments.
• Relationship Revolving Door: Every few years, Deborah would get fed up with him and ask for a divorce, then he would win her back with an expensive, environmentally-conscious Apology Gift.

Michael

Played By: Sam Liu

Colin's boyfriend.

---

• The Big Damn Kiss: Shares one with Colin in the middle of the Nelson Road pitch after Richmond's victory at the end of Season 3.
• Deadpan Snarker: The majority of his dialogue is him sarcastically ribbing Colin.
• Opposites Attract: Downplayed. He doesn't care about football but is dating Colin, who cares about football a great deal and plays professionally.
• Satellite Love Interest: Not much is known about him except that he's dating Colin, knows nothing about football, and traveled to Dubai for a few weeks.
• Secret Relationship: Is in one with Colin at the start of Season 3 due to Colin being closeted—as far as the team knows, Michael is just Colin's friend who helps him pick up women. However, the relationship naturally stops being a secret once Colin comes out to his teammates.
• So Proud of You: It's not audible over the crowd noise, but he can be seen mouthing the words "I'm so proud of you" to Colin after Richmond wins their final match.
• Undisclosed Funds: Whatever he does for a living, it pays enough for him to afford a spacious modern house in the middle of London.

Jade

Played By: Edyta Budnik

The hostess at A Taste of Athens, Nate's family's favorite restaurant. She and Nate begin dating in Season 3.

---

• Ascended Extra: After appearing in one episode in Season 2, she becomes a recurring character and Nate's love interest in Season 3.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Her initial treatment of Nate, while still polite, is fairly frosty. She begins to thaw after he torpedoes a date with a supermodel to defend the restaurant.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Her ability to see through people's superficial charm is practically her superpower. She only warms up to Nate after seeing him defend his genuine love for the restaurant, and she instantly clocks Rupert for the Manipulative Bastard he is. She also recognizes that Ted still cares about Nate and attended the West Ham match in genuine support. Justified, as service workers are often regarded as underratedly excellent at assessing people.
• The Gadfly: While it's usually hard to read her emotions, she clearly gets a kick out of giving slightly ludicrous responses to peoples' questions and letting them guess if she's serious or not.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Her relationship with Nate has shades of this. Nate enjoys stereotypically 'feminine' things like art and Broadway musicals, and initially comes across as more invested in their relationship; meanwhile she's more blunt, less needy, and isn't at all fussed about things like having morning breath after their first night together.
• A Side Order of Romance: She's the hostess of Nate's favourite restaurant and after having a low-key crush on her for about a year, Nate successfully woos her.
• The Stoic: She rarely lets her real emotions show on her face.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: When she's on the job, she's very stoic and aloof. However, she's much warmer and personable when she's off the clock.
• Uptown Girl: Gender-Inverted. She's a restaurant hostess and Nate is the head coach of a Premier League football club.

Dottie Lasso

Played By: Becky Ann Baker

Ted's mother.

---

• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Her charm wins over the people close to Ted, which would be good except she shares stories about him that are varying degrees of accurate.
• Cool Old Lady: Old enough to have a middle-aged son, and wins over the whole team immediately.
• Like Parent, Like Child: She shares a lot of Ted's personality traits, such as making jokes, eating peanut butter straight out of the jar, and being a Stepford Smiler.
• Parents as People: She loves Ted, but she made a grave error in deciding the best way to cope with Mr. Lasso's suicide was to press on without talking about the tragedy with him. This contributed to a lot of his mental health issues as an adult.
• Stepford Smiler: She keeps her feelings bottled in, much as Ted himself used to.

Other Characters

Trent Crimm

Played By: James Lance

A reporter for The Independent who is skeptical of Ted's qualifications and approach.

---

• Brutal Honesty: His first article has him laying out his opinions that Richmond will fail under Ted's management, but he still deeply respects Ted's optimism and kindness.
• Caustic Critic: Implied to be one for the entire team, as Roy tells him that he's a "colossal prick and always has been". In Season 3, it's revealed that Roy's animosity towards him was over a critical article that Trent wrote about a then-17-year-old Roy's professional debut.
• Character Catch Phrase: In the first two seasons, he always introduces himself as "Trent Crimm, The Independent", even to people he knows already know who he is and what paper he works for. This is dropped in Season 3, since he no longer works for The Independent.
• Defrosting Ice King: Originally made out to be the most vicious member of the press, after spending a bit of time with Ted, he sees that he's an admirable man and is much kinder to Ted moving forward, while still doubting his abilities. When he starts tagging along with the Greyhounds for his book project in season 3, he warms up to the team even further, often even being downright chipper about the culture Ted has created.
• Everyone Has Standards: He is appalled at Nate betraying Ted by leaking information about his mental health to the press to advance his own career and tells Ted about it in advance out of respect and that it was Nate who leaked it. Even the article itself is very sympathetic to Ted's struggles and an opinion piece about the damaging effects of the enormous pressure fans put on players and coaches.
• Hidden Depths: He's read A Wrinkle in Time and immediately understands that Ted gave a copy to Roy because of the novel's themes of the burden of leadership.
• Immoral Journalist: Subverted. He initially comes across as a jerk who likes to bash people in his columns, but after spending time with Ted he proves that he takes his journalism seriously and is tough, but fair. However, Season Three reveals that he was a straight example in his early career, as he would be unnecessarily harsh in his articles as a way to gain notoriety and bolster his profile.
• Incompatible Orientation: James Lance has said he played Trent as having a crush on Ted.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Like most everyone, he's skeptical of Ted and is the first person to tell Ted (to his face) that he's basically a joke and a laughing stock to the nation. He's also one of the first people who catch on to Ted's better qualities, and after having dinner with him he writes a glowing review of Ted's personal character and philosophy. It becomes clear that his irritation with Ted doesn't come from a bad place, but a genuine belief in the team and a desire to see them succeed, because they mean something to the town.
  • After the team supports Sam's protest against Dubai Air, Trent is initially more interested in the game, but quickly proves to take Sam's cause seriously.
  • Later on, when Nate tells him about Ted's panic attack at the FA Cup, Trent does write an article about it since it's his job to do so, but he also warns Ted about it ahead of time and tells him Nate was the source. A Freeze-Frame Bonus of his article shows that it's mostly supportive of Ted and focuses more on detailing the ongoing concern of mental health in sports instead of criticizing him. Furthermore, it is implied that he decided that writing it himself would be the best way to help Ted control the narrative, since he believed that if didn't write it himself, Nate would've gone to another journalist to get the story published anyway.
• Mentor in Queerness: Downplayed. Being both a sports media veteran and an older gay man, he supports Colin as he weighs the pros and cons of possibly coming out; however, Colin largely navigates his Coming-Out Story on his own, with Trent just serving as a listening ear and emotional support rather than offering guidance. Trent's mentorship role is further complicated by the fact that he only came out within the past few years himself, meaning Colin has actually been dating men longer than Trent has.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Becomes the second person in Richmond after Keeley to truly understand and appreciate Ted's nature, despite also being the man's biggest critic.
  • Twentysomething Dumb Jock Colin and middle-aged, bookish, unathletic Trent become friends and confidantes after bonding over their shared experience of being closeted.
• Pet the Dog:
  • While he's honest in saying he thinks Ted will fail, after witnessing his kind heart and leadership techniques, he writes a glowing review of his character.
  • He feels obligated as a journalist to write about Ted's panic attacks, but out of respect for Ted, he warns him in advance about the article, gives him an opportunity to comment privately before it's published, and tells him that Nate was his source. A quick glance at the article also shows it's very sympathetic to Ted's struggles.
• Phrase Catcher: People acquainted with him, especially the other reporters in the press room, often finish his Verbal Business Card for him.
• Queer Establishing Moment: Trent follows Colin to the gay bar in Amsterdam. Upon seeing him, Colin attempts to pretend he entered by accident, but Trent reassures him, saying he already knew and that he had a good reason for keeping his secret. He then shares his Coming-Out Story with Colin and listens to him vent. There were hints about it beforehand (his rainbow coffee mug), but this is when it's stated outright.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: For a given definition of "right". Naming one's anonymous source is a huge breach of journalistic ethics; however, Trent also recognizes that Nate was wrong for leaking the story in the first place, while Ted is a good man who didn't deserve Nate's betrayal. He even chooses to own up to his breach of ethics and admits it to his employer which winds up costing him his job.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Stumbles across Colin kissing his partner Michael at the end of "4-5-1" and decides to keep walking, without Colin or Michael noticing that he's seen them. He's eventually upgraded to a regular Secret-Keeper in "Sunflowers" when he tells Colin that he's known about his sexuality for months and hasn't told anyone.
• Stalker with a Crush: He gets permission to follow the team and write a book about Ted's philosophy. James Lance has said he played Trent as having a secret crush on Ted.
• Verbal Business Card: Always introduces himself as "Trent Crimm, The Independent". After he reveals to Ted that he got fired for outing Nate as his source, Ted quips that he's now "Trent Crimm, independent", to which Trent replies that Ted's not the first person to say that.
• What You Are in the Dark: Trent would have been well within his rights as a journalist to not warn Ted about his hit piece and keep his source a secret. But he knows Ted is a good man and recognizes that what Nate did was morally wrong, so he tells Ted everything. He could have also chosen to keep this breach of journalistic ethics secret from his employer, but he comes clean to them knowing that it would cost him his job.

Rupert Mannion

Played By: Anthony Head

Rebecca's philandering ex-husband, former owner of Richmond.

---

• Bad Boss:
• Big Bad: It was Rupert's terrible decisions that led to Rebecca wanting to make things worse for his former club, thus kickstarting the show's whole plot. When Ted actually whips the team into shape, Rupert's own West Ham team comes to represent in the minds of Richmond all their obstacles, and Rupert himself remains a massive obstacle for Rebecca and other major characters.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Rupert is undoubtedly very charming and friendly, but it's clear that beneath it all, he's a Jerkass through and through.
• Brutal Honesty: Deconstructed. Rebecca used to find his blunt honesty charming and noble but has come to see it as a cruel way of putting people down just to mask his own insecurities.
• The Charmer: He's easily able to win over people and crowds through sheer charisma with only a few people like Ted, Sassy, and Jade being able to instantly see through it. Rebecca even admits that she fell for him despite there being several obvious red flags that indicated his true nature just because of how charming he was.
• The Corrupter: To Nate, big time.
• Dirty Old Man: Closing in on seventy and dating a woman who is still paying off student loans. He's also a great deal older than Rebecca too, since he is in his late sixties and her actress is in her late forties.
• Divorce Assets Conflict: He was the original owner of AFC Richmond, but lost the club to Rebecca as part of their divorce settlement. In season one, Rebecca embodies the trope by doing everything she can to run AFC Richmond into the ground just to spite him.
• Domestic Abuser: He was psychologically abusive toward Rebecca during their marriage, gaslighting her and using verbal abuse to keep her tied to him, as well as isolating her from friends and family. He repeats these tactics with Nate in the third season, trying to keep him away from any contact with Ted and break him up with his new girlfriend.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He doesn't exactly love a person, but his love of football and Richmond is absolutely genuine. That is until he decides to buy West Ham United as a means to get back at Rebecca and Ted.
• Even Evil Has Standards: That being said, even after that, when Rebecca reminds him of how he grew up to love football and Richmond, he wants no part of the Akufo Super League.
• Evil Wears Black: In season 3, he dons a new all-black look, usually consisting of a fitted suit over a turtleneck and a Badass Longcoat when outside.
• Faux Affably Evil: Rupert practically oozes charm in every scene he's in and wins over almost everyone in his vicinity effortlessly but none of it is sincere and he seems to take pleasure in acting polite to people who can see through his facade and know full well what a vile person he is.
• Foil: He's Ted's polar opposite. Ted is a humble guy from Kansas while Rupert is a millionaire from London. Ted is always modest while Rupert shows off his colossal ego in every scene. Ted strives to help people improve while Rupert takes pleasure in degrading them and bringing out their worst qualities. Ted is genuinely charming and likable while Rupert's is just a facade. Ted is friendly and helpful to everyone he meets regardless of their status, while Rupert ignores everyone he considers beneath him unless they have some kind of use for him. Rather fittingly, Ted is one of the few people to see through his behavior from the start and take an instant dislike to him, a striking contrast from his usual positive demeanor.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: In season 2, he grows a goatee which stands in stark constrast to Ted's Ned Flanders moustache.
• Hate Sink: Rupert is a vile character who relishes in getting what he wants while making others miserable. It's telling that even Ted, who always looks for the best in people, almost immediately realizes Rupert is a complete jerk and takes a dislike to him and by the end of the series, he's one of the only immoral characters who never changes his ways or shows any signs of doing so.
• Hidden Depths: It's well-hidden, but Rupert does have a soft side. He genuinely loves Richmond and wants to see it succeed and is devastated when the club is relegated at the end of Season 1. In Season 3, Rebecca shares an anecdote about how Rupert grew up poor and would sneak into the Dogtrack to watch Richmond play as he couldn't afford tickets. One day, he got caught by a security guard, who slapped him. 25 years later, Rupert bought Richmond and saw that the security guard still worked for the club and gave the man a huge pay raise without revealing their past connection.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Even with the likes of Ted, Rebecca and AFC Richmond being thorns in his side, what ultimately takes Rupert down are his own flaws and desire to hurt people. After ignoring Rebecca's warnings to stop his infidelity for the sake of Bex and his daughter, Rupert still proceeds to have an affair with Ms. Kakes and later tries to convince Nate to do the same to Jade with some women he picked up at the club. This results in Nate becoming disillusioned with Rupert and resigning from West Ham, causing the team to enter a skid that drops them from a Champions League spot. Ms. Kakes later makes Bex aware of the affair, leading to a PR nightmare for the club and Bex filing for divorce. Feeling that a win against Richmond in the last match of the season will allow him to hold onto the club and his reputation, as well as being furious that Rebecca has moved past her own fixation with destroying him, Rupert becomes so desperate when Richmond makes a comeback that he tries to order new manager George Cartrick to take Jamie out of the match. But when Cartrick refuses, Rupert responds by assaulting him on the sideline for all of the fans and media to see. As a result of all of this, Rupert loses both the club and the positive public image he held onto throughout the series.
• Hypocrite: He has no qualms about openly calling Rebecca a "randy woman" in public despite being a serial philanderer himself.
• Ignored Epiphany: In International Break, Rebecca soliloquies about Rupert in his youth, and how his love for Richmond was born from a genuine passion for football. Rupert seems genuinely touched by the moment; it's the most sympathetic he's ever portrayed, and for a moment it seems as if he is remembering the man he used to be. Unfortunately, it doesn't stick once his reputation starts taking serious hits, and by the time the finale rolls around, Rupert has suffered the consequences of all his betrayals, and completes his descent into a failed businessman with his reputation in the gutter.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He thinks he knows more about soccer strategy than he actually does. When he thinks he's going to win his and Ted's darts game and get to make all of Richmond's starting lineups, he tells Ted he's going to slot Sam at defense "where he belongs". Given Sam's enormous success as a midfielder in Season 2, it's clear his talents really lie there. It's also implied that he hired George Cartrick because he appreciated the man's "boys' club" mentality, while Living Legend Roy considered the guy a "shit manager". Then Season 3 shows he's completely bought into the idea that Nate was the one who was truly responsible for all of Richmond's success under Ted and poaches him for West Ham United (and later replaced him with George after Nate quits). During the second match against Richmond, he mocks the club's Total Football strategy for being "tedious" despite it being directly responsible for Richmond's unprecedented win streak and what ultimately results in West Ham's defeat.
• Kick the Dog: By far his most vile action is when he comes all the way to Rebecca's office to tell her how his girlfriend is pregnant. It's then made clear that he had told Rebecca how he didn't want kids, at which point he tells her that after thinking things over, he only didn't want kids with her. It's clear from her face that she had desperately wanted kids and is devastated.
  • He digs the knife in further at Rebecca's father's funeral, using it as an opportunity to show off his baby in front of her.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After all the horrible things he does throughout the series, the show ends with Rupert going through another divorce with Bex, losing his ownership of West Ham after seeing them miss out on a top four finish thanks to Richmond, and finally being exposed to the public for the Jerkass he truly is.
• Manipulative Bastard: We don't know exactly what he tells Nate during his appearances in Season 2, but it's clear he was manipulating him into becoming resentful towards Ted so he would ditch Richmond for his new club.
• Never My Fault: He resents Rebecca for divorcing him and taking away both his money and AFC Richmond in the settlement while the only reason she did so was because he was a lousy husband who psychologically abused and cheated on her.
• Parental Neglect: The only time he is seen taking care of his daughter is at Mr. Welton's funeral, where he's clearly just using her as a way to upset Rebecca. Otherwise, he leaves Bex to do all of the parenting herself.
• Playboy Has a Daughter: Deconstructed in Season 2, where Rupert has a daughter after his wife Rebecca divorced him for cheating on her with countless other women. When he runs into Rebecca's best friend Sassy, Rupert claims that he's changed because of his daughter although he doesn't actually demonstrate any improved behavior. Sassy angrily tells him that having a daughter doesn't erase his awful treatment of women throughout his life, which is proven by the fact Rebecca still struggles to move on from the pain he caused her and that his seemingly-generous gesture of giving back his new wife's shares of AFC Richmond actually allowed him to buy a rival club. Then in Season 3, he goes right back to cheating on his spouse with West Ham's female employees, showing that he hasn't changed one bit.
• Plot-Inciting Infidelity: His serial adultery is the reason for his divorce with Rebecca and a driving force behind the plot.
• Rags to Riches: In Season 3, it's revealed that Rupert was a local Richmond lad from a working-class family who grew up to become wealthy enough to own his own top-division football club.
• Remarried to the Mistress: Rebecca mentions in season 3 that she met him when he was still with his first wife.
• Rich Bastard: He's very wealthy, enough to donate hundreds of thousands of pounds to charity and buy West Ham United with no apparent risk to his finances, and a complete bastard who treats people horribly.
• Signature Move: He always shows up unannounced/uninvited with the intention to blindside Rebecca. Ted even refers to Rupert's appearances as "sneak attacks". Additionally, he'll often woo their audience with a gimmick like a grand charity donation, free drinks or his baby.
• Silver Fox: His charms don't come from wealth alone. He's very eloquent and, courtesy of Anthony Head, quite handsome for being in his late sixties.
• Smug Smiler: He almost always has a sly grin of smug self-satisfaction on his face.
• Start My Own: After he fully runs out of ways to interfere with how AFC Richmond is run, he buys West Ham United at the end of season 2.
• Toxic Friend Influence: He brings out the worst in anyone who is aligned with him, with a lot of Nate's worst behavior in Season 3 being actively encouraged by him.
• Undisclosed Funds: Even after Rebecca takes the club and a significant amount of his fortune after the divorce, Rupert is still rich enough that he can buy West Ham United, a club valued at £722M ($900M) in 2022.
• Villain Has a Point: While surrounded by a large crowd at The Crown & Anchor, Rupert accuses Rebecca of only hiring Ted because she wants to sabotage the club to get back at him for cheating on her. Of course, this is exactly what she's doing.
• Villainous Breakdown: Rupert begins the episode "So Long Farewell" having lost his head manager, his wife Bex divorcing him and is about to go down for workplace harassment. He continues to lose his grip the better Richmond plays. And finally, he attacks his manager on the pitch and is booed and insulted by the crowd before finally leaving. This destroys whatever credibility he had with the public.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Despite his serial adultery being common knowledge, he's adored by most everyone and said adultery just contributes to his popular image as a charismatic, devilish rogue. In reality, he's smug, cruel and utterly vicious, and his philandering isn't just some naughty little flaw but evidence of his staggering selfishness. This is finally subverted in the episode "So Long Farewell" with Rupert beginning the episode going through another divorce and being accused of inappropriate behaviours by his employees, and after witnessing his altercation with Cartrick on the pitch, the crowd finally sees him for the spiteful monster he really is.

Mae Green

Played By: Annette Badland

Landlady of The Crown & Anchor, a pub in the vicinity of AFC Richmond favored by fans and team members.

---

• The Bartender: In addition to owning the pub, she is also the main bartender.
• Cool Old Lady: She starts off as one of Ted's very few supporters and tells off the pub patrons, especially Baz, whenever they mistreat him.
• Embarrassing Tattoo: Downplayed. She's very open about having an AFC Richmond tattoo, but she won't say where it is and the details are nobody's business.
• Never Mess with Granny:
  • Baz quickly backs down from his claim he'll destroy the pub in celebration if Richmond wins a big match when Mae gives him a Death Glare.
  • In the episode "La Locker Room Aux Folles", Mae reveals she previously banned the fan who Isaac fought from The Crown & Anchor because he mistreated her niece in some way.
• Not So Above It All:
  • As the landlady, she holds court over The Crown & Anchor. But, she'll occasionally engage in some of the same shenanigans as her regulars.
  • Normally she acts as Ted and his staff's most level-headed supporter. But after Ted benches Jamie, she joins in on the pub's "you don't know what you're doing" chant, and after the team gets thrashed by Manchester City in the FA Cup, she criticizes Coach Beard for the tactics they chose.
• Secretly Wealthy: In the finale, it's shown that she can afford to buy a thick stack of ownership shares in AFC Richmond.

The Pub Regulars

Basil "Baz" Primrose, Jeremy Blumenthal, & Paul La Fleur

Played By: Adam Colborne, Bronson Webb & Kevin Garry

Left to Right: Baz, Paul, Jeremy

A group of Richmond fans who are (initially) dismayed by Ted Lasso's leadership.

---

• Ambiguously Gay: Baz's only known relationship with someone not present in the pub is with a male West Ham fan, and this is revealed in the same episode that Colin is revealed to be in the closet.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Paul is the big, Jeremy is the thin, and Baz is the short.
• Character Development: They start off as abrasive jerks, but exhibit growth throughout the course of the show: beginning to show greater patience with the Richmond team and showing genuine friendship to the Richmond coaching team. They also seem to be growing outside the pub, as shown by Jeremy announcing he's got a new job in Season 3.
• Everyone Has Standards: While they're often frustrated with Ted and make their feelings known by insulting him, they're good enough to not extend this treatment to his family and are friendly to Michelle and Henry when they visit the pub.
• Fair-Weather Friend: Their feelings towards Ted vary depending on the team's most recent performance.
• Floral Theme Naming: "So Long, Farewell" finally reveals their full names, and it turns out their surnames are all flower-themed: Primrose, Blumenthal (German for "flower valley") and La Fleur (French for "the flower").
• Gentle Giant: Paul, who's the largest and kindest of them. He even brushes off getting a dart embedded up to the barrel in his arm.
• Jerkass to One: Played for Laughs. When Ted enters the pub after a loss, Baz instantly insults him with crass language. Then when Ted points out Mrs. Lasso is with him, Baz acts like a perfect gentleman to her and welcomes her to the pub.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: They're rude, unreasonable assholes to Ted at first, but allow themselves to be won over by him.
• The Napoleon: Baz, the shortest of the trio, is the rudest and instigates most of the insults they hurl towards Ted.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Paul is the nice one, being a Gentle Giant who is polite to Ted. Baz is the mean one, being The Napoleon who always instigates the insults. Jeremy is the in-between one, as he follows Baz's lead in insulting Ted, but also gives Ted props whenever he does something that meets his approval.
• Obsessive Sports Fan: The three of them are largely defined by being huge fans of AFC Richmond, and their treatment of Ted depends on how well the team does under his coaching.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Baz is only ever referred to as "Baz". The finale reveals his given name is "Basil".
• Pet the Dog: When they see Coach Beard sitting by himself in the pub depressed after the FA Cup semi-final loss, they show genuine concern for him and sit down for a friendly chat.
• Real Men Wear Pink:
  • The three of them are big fans of The Great British Bake Off, and treat the competition just as seriously as Richmond's matches.
  • Paul in particular likes to garden in his spare time, as revealed when he tells Sharon that he's afraid of snakes getting into his vegetable garden.
• Serious Business:
  • They're diehard Richmond supporters and take each loss personally.
  • Season 2 shows they're also enthusiastic The Great British Bake Off fans and berate bakers for mistakes made in the tent. They even sing their own song about "soggy bottoms."
• Those Three Guys: They are never seen without each other, and represent the on-the-ground fan reaction to the fortunes of AFC Richmond.
• Token Good Teammate: While Baz and Jeremy are always abrasive, Paul is gentle, polite and a little timid.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Though they constantly complain about Ted, to his face and behind his back, they clearly do like him. They're thrilled by his unexpected win at darts, they tell him they'll miss him when they expect him to be sacked, and Baz and Jeremy are attempting to grow mustaches just like Ted.

Shannon, a.k.a. "Football Girl"

Played By: Shannon Hayes

A schoolgirl who makes an immediate impression on Ted with her football skills.

---

• The Ace: The first time Ted sees her is when she jumps in on a pick-up game of football and smokes the boys playing.
• Brutal Honesty: She straight-up asks Ted when Richmond is going to win a match.
• Intergenerational Friendship:
  • She's one of the few who don't immediately dismiss Ted as a wanker and they quickly form a bond as she shows him a thing or two about football. She's even willing to come out on a cold and rainy night to look after Ted's son.
  • She seems to be on similarly friendly terms with Beard. When he received a text from Jane and had to run off, he entrusted Shannon with Ted's coffee and a message for him.
• Passionate Sports Girl: She is always seen with a soccer ball, whether she is playing or just tossing one from hand to hand.

Bex

Played By: Keeley Hazell

Rupert's much-younger fiancée, also named Rebecca.

---

• Awful Wedded Life: It's clear that her relationship with Rupert has deteriorated by Season 3, as she openly insults him in public. The season ends with her divorcing him after learning about his inappropriate relationship with Ms. Kakes.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She appears in "For the Children" as the woman who bets on Jamie in the bachelor auction, and is seen towards the end leaving with Rupert.
• Has a Type: In the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, she is briefly seen with Montlaur, who is another wealthy serial womanizer just like Rupert, albeit far less amoral and more age-appropriate.
• May–December Romance: She's in her twenties or thirties and is married to man in his late sixties.
• Nice Girl: She seems to be a pretty mature and good-natured person. Notably, she's actually cordial with Rebecca and trusts her enough that she comes to her for help after learning about Rupert and Ms. Kakes.
• Trophy Wife: While it's unclear if they've already gotten married as of season 2, they have an infant daughter together and everything from her appearance right down to her name makes it clear Rupert is using Bex as a younger replacement for Rebecca.
• Vague Age: The only information given about Bex's age is that she's notably younger than Rebecca and old enough to be paying off student loans, which could put her anywhere from her early twenties to mid-thirties. Her actress, Keeley Hazell, is in her thirties but could pass for a decade younger.

George Cartrick

Played By: Bill Fellows

Former AFC Richmond manager, whom Rebecca fired and replaced with Ted in the first episode. Season 2 sees him return as a pundit on Soccer Saturday.

---

• 0% Approval Rating: Roy's remarks to him in Season 2 indicate he wasn't a popular manager with the team. In addition, Jeff Stelling and Chris Kamara don't enjoy having to deal with him on the show and Nate is seen chuckling at Roy roasting him on live television.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In the show's first scene, Rebecca has him sacked as Richmond's manager for his mediocre record, his obnoxious and inappropriate behavior, and for insistently wearing tight-fitting athletic shorts that expose his genitals.
• Ascended Extra: He only appears in one scene in Season 1's first episode as the original manager of AFC Richmond, wherein Rebecca fires him so she can have Ted take over. He then makes multiple appearances in Seasons 2 and 3 in his new job as a pundit on Soccer Saturday, before returning to the pitch in "So Long, Farewell" as the replacement manager for Nate at West Ham.
• Asshole Victim: He establishes himself as a misogynistic Jerkass in record time, so there's no sympathy for him when Rebecca curtly and unceremoniously gives him the boot, creating a managing vacancy for Ted.
• Character Development: After showing contempt for Ted throughout the series, he ultimately comes to respect him after he becomes the West Ham manager and loses to Richmond in the last game of the season. It helps that Rupert had just betrayed George's trust by shoving him to the ground, and Ted's reaction demonstrated visible concern.
• Establishing Character Moment: He enters the scene groping Higgins, casually using a homophobic slur^note asking Rebecca if she had "some poof" redecorate her office, and making an inappropriate comment about Rebecca's breasts to her face, right before he's fired and given a "The Reason You Suck" Speech by Rebecca.
• Everyone Has Standards: He's a jerk, but he draws the line a couple of times:
  • His criticism of Isaac for attacking a supporter who hurled verbal abuse towards the team counts as an example of this, as players do not have the right to physically retaliate regardless of the provocation. While George was responsible for the culture of bullying and apathy that Ted inherited at Richmond, he does not tolerate anyone who breaks the rules of the game. It's worth noting that Isaac gets some heat from his teammates for lashing out before they find out what the comments were, and even then nobody protests the red card he received. This is in fact the first inkling that George has some standards, which foreshadows...
  • When Rupert orders George to have his players deliberately injure Jamie during the final match between West Ham and Richmond, he flat-out refuses.
• General Failure: Rebecca cites Richmond's mediocre performance under him among the reasons for his firing, and Roy calls him a "shit manager" to his face live on television. Alluded to in the third series as well, since West Ham lose momentum (and drop out of the running for a Champions League spot) after he replaces Nate.
• Graceful Loser: After his defeat to Ted and Richmond in the Season 3 finale, he's entirely respectful about it and gives Ted a congratulatory handshake.
• Hypocrite: Especially once he moves into the world of football punditry.
  • After making a Women Drivers joke on-air, Roy immediately points out that George himself lost his driving licence because he got caught drunk-driving. George's weak justification that it was a reaction to his medication doesn't earn him any points, especially when Roy ripostes that the same medication made George piss his pants.
  • His on-air criticism of Ted as a manager is met with his fellow-pundits observing that he didn't exactly do a great job at Richmond.
  • Conversely, he becomes very complimentary of Nate as West Ham's coach, even though when he (George) was the manager at Richmond, Nate was a totally-overlooked kit man. After Nate leaves the post, George backpedals and claims that West Ham's success was totally thanks to Rupert's ownership instead (which, although not stated, could be him sucking up to Rupert in the hope of getting the West Ham job, which is what happens).
• Jerkass: He's a crass, loud mouthed, bigoted jerk through and through.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In Season 3, during an episode of Soccer Saturday, George dismisses the idea that Ted's coaching is responsible for Richmond's recent run of success since this is clearly a result of Zava's spectacular play. He is not wrong; a few scenes prior, Richmond's team talk about their tactics essentially boil down to "pass the ball to Zava".
• Kick the Dog: As he's leaving Rebecca's office, he fires off one last insult about how she was the last person to discover her husband's infidelity.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He's sexist, homophobic, and makes insulting remarks about mental health issues.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He loves trashing Ted's coaching style and acts like he could do better even as others point out his abysmal track record with Richmond.
• Straw Misogynist: Rebecca cites his casual misogyny as one of the reasons she's firing him. His remarks about Rupert cheating on her right afterwards prove she was on the money there.
• Unknown Rival: He loves bashing Ted whenever he gets the opportunity on Soccer Saturday, presumably out of bitterness for losing his job to him. Ted, on the other hand, never acknowledges his TV attacks. When the two finally cross paths in "So Long, Farewell" following Cartrick becoming the manager for West Ham United, the ensuing events result in Cartrick coming to respect Ted.
• Unnecessary Roughness: Defied. George may be an unsavory Jerkass off the pitch, but he takes the game seriously enough that he refuses to stoop to these kind of tactics to win a match. Unfortunately for George, Rupert Mannion is desperate enough to go that far, and their disagreement earns him a rough shove to the ground for his trouble.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: One of the reasons Rebecca gives for firing him is his habit of wearing inappropriately tight athletic shorts that frequently expose his bollocks (especially whenever he manspreads). He returns to wearing these awful shorts in "So Long, Farewell" when he takes over managing Rupert's West Ham United, but when he defies Rupert's order to have his players deliberately injure Jamie in the final match, Rupert shoves him to the ground hard enough for "Liam & Noel" to pop out on broadcast, giving fans and viewers a (thankfully pixellated) eyeful.

Ms. Leann Bowen

Played By: Ruth Bradley

Phoebe's school teacher in Season 2.

---

• Hypocritical Humor: Most of her screen time consists of admonishing Roy for swearing in front of Phoebe and the other children, only to then swear herself.
• Not So Above It All: She admonishes Phoebe for swearing in class, and asks Roy to watch his language in front of her... only to drop an F-bomb of her own over some glitter stains as soon as they leave the classroom.
• Ship Tease: She gets a bit of this with Roy in her appearances, but neither of them actually make a move and Roy always stays loyal to Keeley.
• Stern Teacher: While Phoebe likes her, her classmates don't because of her tendency to set limits and discipline them. Granted, the kids' opinions may be a bit skewed considering the other teacher in the grade level is a Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher who always gives her students lollipops.

Edwin Akufo

Played By: Sam Richardson

A Ghanaian billionaire who buys Raja Casablanca and tries to convince Sam to sign with the team.

---

• Berserk Button: He is extremely Not Good with Rejection, as detailed below.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He initially comes across as a friendly, reasonable guy. But whenever he doesn't get his way, he quickly shows his true colors.
• Chewing the Scenery: His threat-spouting tantrum after Sam turns him down is done in such an over-the-top manner that it's impossible to take his threats seriously.
• Cultural Posturing: He is a big advocate for Africa and uses his fortune as a way to show the rest of the world all of the culture and achievements the continent has to offer.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He is not comfortable doing business with Russian nationals.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • Sam graciously declines his offer to sign with Raja Casablanca, and so Akufo reacts by threatening to prevent Sam from ever playing on Nigeria's national soccer team. Then he threatens to buy Sam's childhood home just to defecate in it, burn it down, and then defecate on it again. Then he tries to strangle a mannequin in a Richmond jersey.
  • His return in "International Break" shows he made good on his threat; not only did he bribe the Nigerian government to never let Sam play for the national team, he comes to Sam's restaurant after making a bunch of fake reservations there and cancelling almost all of them, claims he'll open his own Nigerian restaurant in the same neighborhood, and keeps calling Sam "Pinkie Dick".
• Excrement Statement: He threatens to buy Sam's family's house and crap in every room before burning the place down, then crap again on the ashes.
• Faux Affably Evil: An exaggerated example. He will be extremely generous and polite right up until he hears the word "no," at which point he will fly into a rage and declare his wrath forever.
• Hypocrisy Nod: He's well aware that it's hypocritical for him to say billionaires should not exist while being one himself. That's why he intends on breaking up his inherited empire and spending his fortune on projects meant to benefit the public. However, this is subverted in Season 3, where the audience sees he's now trying to put together a soccer Super League that will ultimately only make himself and the billionaire club owners more wealthy, making him just a plain Hypocrite. Ultimately it's left unclear whether Edwin was just putting on a more socially conscious front while trying to woo Sam, or whether he genuinely believed his own words but later became corrupted by greed.
• Not Good with Rejection: A non-romantic example. When Sam decides to stay with Richmond rather than sign with his team, Akufo throws a tantrum of epic proportions.
  Akufo: I will buy your childhood home and I will take a shit in every room and then I will burn the place down! Then I will sit there and I will eat kenkey and I will poop on the fucking ashes, I promise you this. I will never forget this disrespect. Fuck you, Sam Obisanya!
• Psychopathic Manchild: His reaction to Sam's rejection shows that he's far from mature. And when some football club owners decline to join the Akufo League, he responds by having his assistant throw food at them.
• Upper-Class Twit: Played With. While he initially presents himself as cultured, business-savvy and socially conscious, his reaction to Sam's very polite rejection shows that his privileged upbringing as a tech billionaire's heir left him completely unequipped for situations in which he doesn't get his way. His vulgar outburst is undignified, childish and strongly focused on fecal matter.

Jack Danvers

Played By: Jodi Balfour

A venture capitalist who is the financial backer of Keeley's PR firm.

---

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Comes across as a supportive boss and girlfriend who is there to encourage Keeley to be herself in a corporate world, but the second her own position is threatened she slut shames Keeley for making a sexual video of herself, dumps her girlfriend by ghosting her, and then pulls the funding from Keeley's company without even having the decency to give her a heads' up first.
• Gender-Blender Name: Higgins assumes that Jack must be short for Jacqueline, but she explains that her father just really wanted a boy.
• It's All About Me: She encourages Keeley to apologize when video of her masturbating is leaked, because she's worried about how that will reflect on her. She also walks out when Keeley refuses.
• Lipstick Lesbian: She's a feminine woman with a penchant for sparkly sneakers who becomes Keeley's love interest.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: A rare same-sex example. She has no qualms about picking up a woman who technically works for her, but she is still upset when she finds out that Keeley, who is famous for being a former page 3 girl, used to create lewd private video clips for her exes.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: When she visits the office she proves to be a reasonable and savvy businesswoman by reminding Barbara not to get so obsessed with the financial numbers that it impacts the firm's culture and brand while also encouraging Keeley to make the hard decisions that will ultimately help the company like firing Shandy.
• Samus Is a Girl: Thanks to her Gender-Blender Name, everyone who hasn't met her in person assumes she's a man.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After she and Keeley have a fight over the latter's nude leak, she decides to go to Argentina for a few months, effectively ending their relationship.
• Secretly Selfish: While she's nowehere near the manipulative, sociopathic bastard Rupert is (and Rebecca feared she might be), Jack does prove to have a self-centered worldview in the aftermath of Keeley's nude leak as she's primarily concerned about how the video reflects on her.
• Undisclosed Funds: She's a billionaire's daughter who refers to herself as "get-away-with-murder rich". While we don't know about her own finances, she sits on a large pile of venture capital and she regularly treats Keeley with lavish gifts and trips early on in their relationship.
• Uptown Girl: While Keeley has certainly done well for herself with both her modeling and PR careers, Jack comes from a billionaire family and is able to throw her money away on luxuries Keeley cannot regularly afford. This eventually contributes to their relationship ending, as Jack takes a snobbish attitude towards Keeley's Page 3 history and how it reflects on her own high class image.

Barbara

Played By: Katy Wix

The Chief Financial Officer of Keeley's PR firm.

---

• Consummate Professional: Barbara gets deeply frustrated with Keeley's approach to workplace management.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: She does grow fond of Keeley during the season and chooses to continue working with her once Rebecca takes over KJPR's funding.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Her response to learning that Jack gave Keeley an expensive present shortly after the two hooked up certainly reads this way, though it may also be professional jealousy as she's been shuttled around from place to place as Jack's on-the-ground business manager for various ventures without much personal recognition.
• I Choose to Stay: Ultimately when Jack pulls KJPR's funding and Rebecca takes over, Barbara chooses to leave the venture capital firm and continue working with Keeley.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While she's very blunt and rude about it, Barbara has a point that hiring someone like Shandy, who lacks business qualifications and experience, into a managerial role at KJPR is a huge risk. Barbara's proven right when Shandy becomes a liability to the firm with her poor decisions and Keeley has no choice but to fire her.
• The Killjoy: Keeley finds herself struggling with Barbara's no-nonsense personality hindering her efforts to make the office more fun.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Despite coming across as someone who hates fun, she has an extensive collection of snow globes.
  • She is mostly shown to be indifferent about football, but when a bystander gets a bloody nose fracture from a penalty kick, she enjoys it a little too much. She greatly enjoys the West Ham match due to the excessive violence displayed by the Richmond players, is reluctant to go to another match upon learning that it properly will not be as violent, and even admits that she prefers rugby since it tends to be more violent than football.
• The Stool Pigeon: Or at least, an aspiring one, as she threatens to snitch on Keeley to their investors if she makes things "fun."

Shandy Fine

Played By: Ambreen Razia

An old model/WAG friend of Keeley's who joins her at her PR firm.

---

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Although bubbly and nice at first glance, Shandy quickly shows that she has questionable ethics and an abrasive personality. It eventually gets to a point where she becomes a liability for KJPR's ongoing survival as a business. And when Keeley lets her go due to costing them a client, she goes on an epic rant in full view of the rest of the office.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Deconstructed. Keeley decides to hire her after she makes a bunch of helpful suggestions for a commercial shoot to save the firm time and money; however, while she initially does well at her job despite her abrasive personality and questionable decision-making, she eventually becomes a liability to Keeley's company to the point that a client drops them. Keeley fires her after discovering this.
• Foil: To Keeley. Both are former WAGs/models with underutilized potential who got lifted up by their more successful friend, but Shandy has a tendency to implement hasty and inappropriate ideas that further highlight the pure professionalism Keeley embodies behind her unconventional demeanor.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: invoked Unlike Keeley, she's a firm believer in this and will do whatever is necessary to help clients get media exposure.
• Not So Similar: Keeley hires her because she sees a lot of her old self in Shandy and wants to give her the same shot Rebecca gave her. However, it becomes apparent that while Shandy may have a similar background and talents, she has a different set of ethics.

Dr. Jacob Bryanson

Played By: Mike O'Gorman

Ted and Michelle's former couples therapist who later begins dating Michelle.

---

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While he comes across as a friendly, amicable guy on the surface, the fact that he's dating a former patient of his brings up serious concerns about his character.
• Parent with New Paramour: Downplayed. He seems to get along with Henry well, but it's unclear if Henry realizes Michelle and Jake are dating.
  • As of the finale, it looks like Henry's lost quite a bit of respect for Jake, if he had any in the first place. While Henry and Michelle are cheering Richmond on in their final match, Jake is providing unfunny commentary or on his phone, and neither Henry nor Michelle are paying him much mind.
• Psycho Psychologist: Him dating his former patient is a huge breach of ethics that for Real Life mental health professionals is actually considered a license-risking offense and is illegal in some places (such as Kansas, incidentally). According to the APA Ethics Code, the therapist and patient can only pursue a relationship if it's been at least two years since their therapist-patient relationship ended. Considering it's been two years since Ted moved to London, there may be some leeway, but that depends on when their relationship began. Also, even with the two year buffer, these sorts of relationships are still discouraged by the APA.
• Soccer-Hating Americans: He makes several derogatory comments about the sport as he, Michelle, and Henry watch Richmond's final match against West Ham on TV, much to the the latter two's displeasure.
• "Ugly American" Stereotype: The one time he shows up in Richmond he seems more concered with getting selfies with phone booths and Black Cabs than spending time with Michelle and Henry, and it's implied he was even worse in Paris.

Arlo White and Chris Powell

Played By: Arlo White and Chris Powell

Football commentators who narrate all of Richmond's matches.

---

• Adam Westing: Chris more-so than Arlo, who is playing a more life-like version, but who is still part of the Greek Chorus.
• As Himself: They're real football commentators playing fictionalized versions of themselves.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Chris is prone to making strange, Literal-Minded, or outright nonsensical statements, such as claiming that he stopped making predictions because they always came true and he started to worry that he was the one making them happen.
• Funny Background Event: They're rarely the focus of the scene, but if you listen carefully much of their commentary of the matches is comedy gold.
• Greek Chorus: Justified, as they're professional commentators and it's literally their job to comment on the actions of the main characters.
• Lemony Narrator: Their commentary serves as In-Universe narration for the football games and is extremely quirky.
• Newscaster Cameo: Real football newscasters who appear As Themselves.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Most of their commentary involves Chris saying something bizarre and Arlo side-eyeing him before getting back to the match at hand.
• Those Two Guys: They only ever appear together.

Tommy

Tommy

Played by: Bill Skinner

A celebrity-obsessed young Englishman who is the first U.K. resident to meet Ted and comment on his making the manager's job.

---

• Book Ends: Ted him and takes an "ussie" with him when he first arrives in the UK and when he leaves.
• Brutal Honesty: He isn't afraid to comment about how "mental" the idea of Ted coaching football in Europe is, or how he sees Keely as a more selfie-worthy celebrity than Roy.
• Once a Season: He appears twice in season 1 and once each in the remaining seasons, with a combined total screentime of under three minutes.
• Selfie Fiend: He loves photographing himself with famous people, although he insists on calling them "Ussies" and not selfies.
• Upper-Class Twit: He is a friendly but socially awkward and dim young man who is seen attending a wealthy dentist's Christmas party. Jamie even calls him a "posh twat." He's matured a bit by his final scene, though.

---