TV’s most beloved assistant coach says the World Cup is about to change America. Here’s how.

**David Greene** (0:04)
This is In Conversation from Apple News. I'm David Greene in for Shumita Basu. Today, getting ready for the World Cup with Ted Lasso's Brendan Hunt.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is officially underway. It is the largest World Cup in soccer history, with 48 teams and 104 matches. It's almost certainly gonna be the most viewed sports event ever, watched by billions of fans across the world. This will also be the first time the event is co-hosted by three nations, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. The last time the US hosted the World Cup was 32 years ago in 1994 So, this year is yet another chance for the US to grow its footprint as a soccer country, even if the US. Men's National Team doesn't make it to the final. To get us excited about what is to come, I wanted to talk to Brendan Hunt. He's one of the creators, writers, and stars of Apple TV's Ted Lasso. He's also a massive soccer fan and one of the hosts of the Apple News Original podcast, After the Whistle. On that show, he'll be breaking down all the World Cup action of Rebecca Lowe, who has been covering the Premier League for NBC Sports for over a decade, and who will also be covering the World Cup this year for Fox Sports. In our conversation, Brendan and I talked about how he became such a diehard fan, his hopes and dreams for the US. Men's National Team, and his secret plan to get Americans to love soccer. A quick warning, there is some adult language in this episode.
You grew up in Chicago at a time when, I mean, I wouldn't say soccer was exactly hot in the Windy City when you were growing up.

**Brendan Hunt** (1:50)
It was not.

**David Greene** (1:51)
Did soccer play any role in your life?

**Brendan Hunt** (1:53)
Basically zero. I don't even think I had soccer as a PE unit. Soccer back then was something I was vaguely aware of that was happening in Hispanic neighborhoods and in the suburbs.
Little did I know, Brian McBride was one of those people out there who was gonna loom large in my fandom decades later. But yeah, I was basically never exposed to it.

**David Greene** (2:12)
Well, so then how do you become known for soccer? I mean, one of the stars of Ted Lasso and also hosting a popular podcast, it's gonna be a guide to the World Cup for many of us.

**Brendan Hunt** (2:26)
Yeah, I mean, it's a fair question. What is exactly this kind of legitimacy?

**David Greene** (2:29)
What are you doing here?

**Brendan Hunt** (2:31)
All that really happened is I just got enthusiastic about it before most of us, really, and not until I was an adult. I moved to Amsterdam in 1999 and started to do comedy there at the infamous, notorious, wonderful Boom Chicago.
In 1999, there's no streaming, there's no broadband, there's no way for me to keep up with my beloved Chicago sports anymore. I was like, soccer, I'll give you a shot. Once I caught the bug, I became, frankly, ravenous for knowledge, and I like these magazines that they had at the time, 442 Magazine and World Soccer Magazine and the now defunct Total Football Magazine, they would have these history chapters. So that's how I'm learning about IACS in 72 and Claudio Gentile and all these random facts.

**David Greene** (3:16)
You were nerding out. You were getting into the stats and the names and the history.

**Brendan Hunt** (3:21)
It's not like I'm the first American who became a soccer fan by any means, but as is true for so many American soccer fans around that time especially, I was the soccer fan in the friend group.

**David Greene** (3:31)
Yeah. You were on it before it was cool for Americans.

**Brendan Hunt** (3:34)
Yeah. In particular, when friends of mine would come visit in Amsterdam, I got into translating soccer for them, and Jason Sudeikis was one of those friends, and he bought FIFA for our PlayStation in the green room of our theater, and when we would play, I would say like, oh yeah, okay, 72 IX, they're like the Showtime Lakers.
He's like, okay, got it, and that exact same dynamic then became the basis for one of the bits in the original Ted Lasso commercials.

**David Greene** (4:01)
We came up with flashcards system in order for me to make American comparisons to English teams.

**Brendan Hunt** (4:07)
All I had to do is link what I don't know to what I do know. Manchester United, super rich, everybody either loves them or hates them.

**David Greene** (4:15)