Ted Lasso Has a New Team for Season 4—and the Cast Says They Can Actually Ball

3 min readRoy Kent. Jamie Tartt. Dani “Football Is Life” Rojas. AFC Richmond’s locker room is no stranger to big personalities—and it’s welcoming a whole new cast of memorable characters as Ted Lasso returns to England to coach the club’s women’s team. (This time, Ted will have to knock before entering the locker room!)And that’s not the only change afoot, as the Apple TV series focuses on a female squad and the very real struggles they face on the field. Expect episodes to address toxic fan culture, motherhood, and more, all told through the viewpoint of enthusiastic footballers just looking to make a name for themselves—much like the actors who portray them, says Juno Temple (aka Keeley Jones).“There is the most incredible new team of actors and brilliant humans on this season that I found to be such incredible hype women,” she says. “You would walk into a room and maybe you weren't feeling great that day, and there would be this immediate flurry of so much love from this new team of players. I am so excited that they are going to get to explore their own story.”In preparation for season 4, the new players spent two weeks in a football bootcamp, not only learning the ins and outs of play but also how to carry themselves on the pitch.“We thought it was going to be cushy, and it certainly wasn't,” says Abbie Hern, who plays Gemma, a law student scouted by Richmond. “They took it extremely seriously, and we were put through our paces.”Indeed, after a week on their own to get to know one another, the players were then joined by their doubles for the second week. “That was a humbling experience,” recalls Jude Mack, who plays “maniac goalkeeper” Boots. “But they do a good job of making us look like we're footballers at the same level as them.”Even with the doubles making them look good, actor Faye Marsay, who plays footballer Lizzie, emphasizes that the cast (many of who played football as kids) does have game.“We did a lot of the skills and we did a lot of scoring the goals [while filming],” she says. “We were doing that and doing it for 16, 17 hours a day. It's important to know that we can ball. We're ballers.”Marsay’s Lizzie may be the biggest baller of them all, actually, as she attempts to juggle football and a family.Colin HuttonThe team also includes twins played by Aisling Sharkey and Rex Hayes.“I think she finds it incredibly difficult,” Marsay says of managing dual roles. “She has needs that are not being met, and there's part of her, at the essence of who she is, that she's had to put on the back burner to have children. That's not to say that she doesn't want the children, but it's shining a light on how do athletes have it all?”It’s a question few male athletes have to contend with, adds co-star Mack. “Male athletes all have kids because the invisible labor of the childcare is taken care of by their female partners,” she says.Watch the team in action when a new episode of Ted Lasso streams Wednesday on Apple TV.Amy Wilkinson is a contributing entertainment editor at Women's Health, where she edits the magazine's celebrity cover stories and writes health features. She has previously held editor titles at Entertainment Weekly and MTV News. In 2021, Amy completed her 600-hour teacher-training at Core Pilates NYC to become a comprehensively trained Pilates instructor.