Ted Lasso Season 4 trailer reveals candy nod to former forged member
Ted Lasso has dropped the official trailer for season four, which features a heartwarming nod to a fan-favorite character.
The feel-good Apple TV+ comedy-drama about an American football coach, Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), who’s hired to coach a British men’s soccer team originally concluded in 2023.
A surprise fourth-season revival was announced in March 2025, with the storyline picking back up in Britain, where Ted has returned to coach a women’s soccer team.
In the emotional trailer, released Tuesday, many of the original cast, including Juno Tempo, Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein and Brendan Hunt are reunited. Yet, it’s the final scene that has some fans in tears.
“But football is life,” Coach Beard (Hunt) tells one of his new players, quoting former character Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández), whose catchphrase was, “Football is life!”
“No, life is so much more than football,” the female player replies, as Ted acknowledges, “Not as catchy, but true.”
Fernández, 35, appeared in the first three seasons of the show as hyper-optimistic soccer star Rojas. The Mexican actor, who earlier this month made his professional soccer debut for El Paso Locomotive FC, is not expected to reprise his role in the forthcoming season, given that the focus has shifted away from a men’s soccer team to a women’s soccer team. Original cast members, Phil Dunster and Toheeb Jimoh, will also sit out season four for the same reason.
Instead, the cast will introduce a handful of new characters, including Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds as Alice Chilton, co-coach of the new women’s team, and child actor Grant Feely taking over as Ted’s son, Henry, alongside Faye Marsay (Game of Thrones), Abbie Hern (Peaky Blinders), Jude Mack (Prime Target), Aisling Sharkey (Jurassic World: Dominion) and Rex Hayes, making up the key players of Ted’s new team.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Sudeikis recently revealed he had to have “very difficult” phone calls with each cast member who played the original teammates to explain their absence in the new season.
“Because I didn’t want them to hear it on the internet,” the show’s co-creator and star told The Hollywood Reporter. “And because I love those guys and we all went through something together.”
Ted Lasso debuted in 2020 to widespread critical acclaim. It won back-to-back Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2021 and 2022. Reception for season three, however, was divisive, with some fans accusing it of losing its way.
Sudeikis later hit out at the “small but hostile crowd of dissenters” in the 2024 book, Believe: The Untold Story Behind Ted Lasso, the Show That Kicked Its Way Into Our Hearts, by Jeremy Egner.
“Much like live theatre, the show, especially Season 3, was asking the audience to be an active participant,” he is quoted as saying. “Some people want to do that, some people don’t. Some people want to judge — they don’t want to be curious.”
Sudeikis added, “I’ll never understand people who will go on talking about something so brazenly that they, in my opinion, clearly don’t understand. And God bless ’em for it; it’s not their fault. They don’t have imaginations and they’re not open to the experience of what it’s like to have one.
“Everybody’s in better shape than when they started,” the Emmy winner continued. “Like a good Boy or Girl Scout at a campsite, we left it better than we found it. And if you don’t see that in that show, then I don’t know what show you’re watching.”
Ted Lasso season four premieres August 5 on Apple TV+.
