One of the biggest bones of contention I picked with Ted Lasso Season 2 was its weirdly lassez-faire approach to that whole “win the whole fuckin thing” storyline. You know – the one they literally ended Season 1 with. Not that everything has to be linear and straightforward all of the time, but it seemed like the show dug itself a hole by starting off AFC Richmond’s season with a record-tying streak of tied games, then let them dangle startlingly close to a double relegation, and then bailed them out of trouble by writing in a largely offscreen winning streak. It felt a little like the narrative equivalent of ice cream for dinner. Sure, you’re full…but are you?
Anyway, I decided that whenever Season 3 finally started airing, I would write up a little article every week on AFC Richmond’s win-loss record (technically win-draw-loss) and where that record likely put them in the Premier League table. And then the show started using Coach Beard’s white board and in-universe TV graphics to hit us over the head with those very same things. So my idea is kind of redundant. But I’m going to do it anyway, because the well-meaning and good-natured and endlessly hopeful people who make Ted Lasso still need to be brought to task so that this particular sin of omission never happens again.
And so! I present to you the weekly AFC Richmond Win-Loss Tracker, making its grand debut juuust under halfway through the season. Because what is punctuality if not a suggestion.
Things for Richmond are not going especially great to this point in the season. After a murky, literally pooh-payh debut, the Greyhounds got Zava. And Zava gave them a jolt like we’ve never seen. Richmond rattled off six consecutive wins and damn near mounted the whole EPL table. It was the winning streak montage I expected a season ago, and it was – Zava-filled or not – simply glorious. (Also, to be clear, my criticism is not really about Zava, who’s a great character. Or about Maximilian Osinski, who plays Zava just beautifully. It’s that the Greyhounds were winning by embracing selfishness! That’s literally the opposite of who they are!)
Then they ate shit against West Ham, Zava peaced out after a few more losses, and the team is more or less right back where they started. After five Ted Lasso episodes and 15 matches in the Ted Lasso universe, Richmond is 6-3-6 on the season. Yes – 6-3-6, that’s six wins, three losses, and six draws. Nothing confusing about that at all.
In fact, to head off any potential confusion, the good people of Ted Lasso have even started showing us Richmond’s position in the overall EPL table as a regular feature of its in-match televisuals and Arlo White and Chris Powell’s commentary. Because we don’t need to only keep track of AFC Richmond anymore. This season, we also have to keep tabs on new arch-rivals West Ham United, AKA Nate’s Imperial Star Destroyer.
And technically we should also keep an eye on Manchester City, against whom the Greyhounds appear to have never won a match? Or they haven’t won in ages? Or never in Manchester? In any case, Manchester gave them a 5-0 drubbing last year, so we’re supposed to growl at them. I can’t bring myself to do it, because that loss was integral to “Man City” and “Beard After Hours,” and those were two of the best episodes of Ted Lasso Season 2. But you guys do it – go ahead. I’ll back you up with some glaring.
In any case, Richmond is still in 9th place despite all their losing and moping and Zava-misuse and then Zava-retiring. Things aren’t all that bad! They only feel terrible because they’re bad currently. Nobody likes being in a war. What you have to remember is that you used to not be in a war. Easy peasy, right?
By the by – in case you’re wondering about AFC Richmond’s win-loss record under all three years of Ted’s guidance, I happen to have that information as well. As longtime followers of The Antagonist’s Ted Lasso coverage are doubtless aware, we wrote about Season 2 under a slightly different banner. All the way back then (can anyone remember back that far? I barely can. The end of 2021 seems an eternity ago), Richmond engineered a remarkable, largely offscreen winning streak and saved themselves from the possibility of a second relegation in as many seasons. Their W-D-L record last year was 24-17-6.
We know those figures precisely because Season 2 was when Ted Lasso introduced Coach Beard’s white board. Determining Richmond’s exact record in Ted’s first year as coach is more difficult, because we can’t be sure that the results the show either presents or references quietly, through asides and background comments, is every single result under Ted. If you’re a cynic, that’s just the writers leaving themselves some leeway; if you’re a believer, what the show says is canon and that’s that. In either case, we are made aware of exactly ten results throughout Season 1: two wins (against Everton in “Make Rebecca Great Again” and the mysterious “WTF” team in “Tan Lines”), one draw (mentioned by a reporter), and seven losses.
So Richmond’s record under Ted through two seasons is 26-18-13. And to this point in his third season – again, this is in the Win-Draw-Loss format the EPL uses, not the Win-Loss-Draw format more familiar to Americans – it’s 32-16-24. Which is not bad! But the team’s record under Ted as a member of the Premier League specifically is just 8-4-13. Which…is. Sorry, Ted.
