FIFA 23 will include Ted Lasso, AFC Richmond, and its stadium, if you can believe it

Just one day after the Ted Lasso Twitter account teased us about the titular character coming to FIFA, the news has been confirmed: the AFC Richmond coach is indeed coming to FIFA 23. It’s not just Ted himself though. The coach, his whole team, and his home stadium Nelson Road will all be included in the game.

FIFA 23’s official Ted Lasso trailer gives us an idea of what to expect. It features characters from the show talking about the coach, including the infamous Roy Kent — it should be fun to put him up against real-world soccer stars like Liverpool’s Virgil Van Dijk, the highest-rated defender in the game. The trailer ends with a line-reading from Ted Lasso himself that’s very much in the spirit of the show.

Coach Lasso will be a selectable manager in Career mode. AFC Richmond will also be usable in Career mode as well, in addition to Kickoff, Online Seasons, and Online Friendly matches. In addition, you can unlock AFC Richmond and Nelson Road-themed items for use in FIFA Ultimate Team and Pro Clubs, so this seems like a well-thought-out crossover altogether.

It won’t be long before FIFA fans can try out the rest of what this year’s game has to offer. FIFA 23’s release date is Friday, September 30. EA Play members get early access to a 10-day trial a few days earlier, on September 27. Some players have already gotten their hands on the game thanks to accidental downloads that happened a full month early, but they missed out on having ol’ Ted on their coach roster.

This might not be the only time we see a digitized Jason Sudeikis in a video game. According to leakers, he’s rumored to be coming to MultiVersus, making the list of datamined characters for that game even longer. You might be wondering how Ted Lasso could even be included in Warner Bros’ crossover platform fighter, but the answer is simple: while the show does air on Apple TV+, it’s actually a property of Warner. If anything, Ted Lasso’s appearance in FIFA 23 gives more credence to the leak, because if Warner is willing to license out its character to EA’s game, then it can certainly include him in its own.