Football. It’s a funny old game. It makes you laugh (see the Italian assistant coach for more on that), it makes you cry (for that, well, you know). And if football didn’t quite come home in this month’s Euro 2020, then the progressive, open-hearted spirit of the England team, led by manager Mr Gareth Southgate, has since travelled the globe.

As a measure of that, witness last week’s red-carpet moment from actor Mr Jason Sudeikis, who sported a “Jadon & Marcus & Bukayo” sweatshirt at the West Hollywood premiere of his Apple TV comedy Ted Lasso. The sartorial homage to the Three Lions who bravely stepped up to take penalties in the final was a sweet show of transatlantic support and a smart tie-in with Sudeikis’s show, which is back for a second season this week.

The return of Ted Lasso couldn’t be more timely. A comedy about a kind, gentle coach who inspires an ailing football team, it’s maybe just the ticket for your post-Euro 2020 blues. Sit tight for not quite 90 minutes and let us explain the Ted Lasso ball game….

A comedy about football you say. Haven’t we suffered enough?

I know, I know. Your heart is still sore from the Euro defeat. But maybe a fish-out-of-water-story about human kindness and decency is just the televisual tonic you need right now?

**Ah, **Schitt’s Creek**. Already binged it. Besides, isn’t **a comedy about community and kindness so very 2020?

Because 2021 is turning out to be such a barrel of carefree laughs?

OK, you make a valid point. Now you’ve just got to sell the idea of a US TV series about football.

Right, that. Ted Lasso – played by the show creator Sudeikis – is the small-town American college football coach drafted in to manage an ailing English Premiership Club…

Oh, fish out of water, across the water. Cue lots of American-in-London jokes…

There’s a bit of that, to be fair. The show, which debuted last year, deals in fairly broad archetypes, such as the villainess club owner who only brought Lasso in to enact revenge on her former husband. Then there’s the players, who range from a young Mr Jack Grealish-style striker to an ageing midfielder in the vein of Mr Roy Keane. They’re a motley crew, united only in their dislike for Lasso’s coaching style.

How would you describe that?

In a word, whimsical. Lasso is the kind of guy who believes the good will eventually win out, even if you go 5-0 down by halftime. Lasso knows heartache (he’s really in London because of marital strife back home), but he believes in triumph. He’s a man who brings an A6 sheet of paper to team talks, scrawls “BELIEVE” on it and Sellotapes it to the changing room wall in the hope of inspiring his players. Spoiler: it doesn’t.