Love it or hate it, the FX documentary series “Welcome to Wrexham” and the Welsh club Wrexham AFC featured in the show are making headlines in American football.
Take a look at last weekend’s FA Cup Round 4 games. Playing in the National League (the fifth tier of English professional football), Wrexham faced Championship side Sheffield his United. Without “Welcome to Wrexham” Without prominent Wrexham owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, the match would have received little attention in the United States. However, in the club’s new reality, the match was featured on his ESPN+ and offered the polished, top-notch production normally reserved for top-tier matches. On social media, it seemed like this was the only match happening in professional football, despite matches being played all over Europe.
Not everyone was happy. Some fans on social media have said that for years he was a broadcast partner of Major League Soccer and the United States Soccer Federation, and he believed that ESPN would pay such attention to lower-league games in the United States, or MLS games themselves. I wondered why I didn’t pay. Others expressed interest in the MLS, USL and other clubs playing in their backyards, while many fans attending the match were attracted to lower league clubs across the ocean. In addition, some people are disgusted by the discourse, expressing the same kind of fatigue associated with hearing, reading, or watching Ted Lasso. There was
But Wrexham shows no signs of fading into the far reaches of the United States. Few in the footsteps of elite teams such as Real Madrid or Liverpool have managed to carve a niche of their own: the club’s 100-year-old backstory, so expertly told by Reynolds and McElhenney. Fans who have come to appreciate it.
Those viewers will soon have the opportunity to see Wrexham or several iterations of it up close and personal. The club today announced his participation in the $1 million winner-takes-all TST tournament. This tournament is what the Creator is billing as his 7-on-7 soccer world championship. The convention, held in Cary, North Carolina, takes place in early June.
Wrexham’s squad will not consist of current Wrexham players, but will include some names familiar to those who have followed the club in recent years. He will be coached by former Wrexham player and current first-team assistant coach David Jones. Sean Pearson, who captained Wrexham during his four-year stay, will also play in the club’s 7-on-7 side. Perhaps most notably, Paul Rutherford, who was cut from the team following a very memorable exit in an early episode of the season, dons a Wrexham kit for the competition.
In addition, Wrexham board adviser Sean Harvey said the club will finalize plans for a friendly in the United States in a month, hoping it will remain in the minds of American consumers and fans well into the off-season. He said he has decided.
“Wrexham, as famous as they are in the United States, have never actually played competitive football in the United States,” Harvey said. “As we looked at our schedules and how we could stay up to date when we weren’t playing football, this opportunity from 1-4 June was a great way to continue Wrexham’s message. There is no natural way to follow a club.”
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🔴⚪ #WxmAFC X @TST7v7 pic.twitter.com/VnX64JFm4S
— Wrexham AFC (@Wrexham_AFC) February 3, 2023
Objectively, it’s so hard to see why a match like Wrexham’s FA Cup draw would be so interesting to US viewers, perhaps more than any domestic league. not. “Welcome to Wrexham” is an engaging series that has won the club a sizeable number of fans, not only in their hometown football, but also in the United States, where football may be rarely watched in the first place. It’s similar to how Americans who barely knew the existence of F1 until a year ago became F1 fans. Such interest does not always translate locally.
Asked why he thinks viewers would prefer an FA Cup match featuring Wrexham over an MLS match, Harvey said, “From our perspective, it’s flattering.” “Because it’s not normal. It’s not normal. It’s not considered or ridiculed, in general, in the past. Its unique approach will increase your audience’s interest. Will anyone be watching his 46 league games for Wrexham during the season? It will be the same at that stage. So I think it’s true that I was able to play in a big game against a club that many people in America have heard of.The FA Cup is traditionally the biggest knockout tournament in the world that everyone has heard of. Bringing it all together is what makes ESPN+ games reach such a large audience. “
Wrexham participates in the TST tournament, which is modeled after basketball’s TBT competition, eschewing some of the traditional rules of football and adopting something closer to the local Wreck League. He plays twice his 20-minute first half on a shortened field with his seven players per team. Other elements of full-field games are also discarded. Slide tackles are not allowed and offside rules are ignored.
Perhaps most interesting is the tournament use of the “Elam” or “Target Score” ending pioneered by TBT competitions and occasionally used by the NBA in All-Star Games and G League competitions. After the match ends, play continues until the target score. In this case, he will add one extra goal to the leading team’s score. If the game is 6-2, it will be 7-7 at the end of regulation play. In addition, every five minutes of extra time he is pulled out by two players. Games he goes from 7 vs 7 to 6 vs 6, 5 vs 5 and so on.
“Football is not our sport. This is not an American sport. A lot of the time people get into the habit of emulating what’s going on elsewhere and falling into that trap. Really.” The important thing, and what we expect, is to let our creativity and originality shine and stay true to the sport, but we are not afraid to innovate and try things out. With that approach, I hope I can be as successful in soccer as I am in basketball.It’s OK to try things.It’s OK to have fun.”
Wrexham isn’t the only one participating in the tournament. USMNT legend He was joined by a group of former USWNT players, with a team led by Clint Dempsey. Several professional teams, such as MLS’ FC Cincinnati and Liga MX’s Club Nekasa, are also participating with their former player collections. But for Mugher, Wrexham had a unique appeal. It was probably familiar to American football fans who look almost elsewhere to watch the game.
“They represent something unique that you can’t get anywhere else,” says Mugar. “Several types of teams are expected at an event like this: big, huge professional clubs, people playing pick-ups you’ve never heard of before, alumni teams, all these different affinity groups. Wrexham are in a category of their own, they have not only won the FA Cup this year, but they are continuing this journey to move up the ranks of professional football, which is very unique, and they have been able to win this entire tournament, that is to say, It ties in very well with the story of the underdog – offering open access to everyone and playing against the best players in the world in front of a large audience on an open stage.
Mugar takes a very liberal view of tournament growth. He says the ceiling is potentially “the World Cup,” and envisions the first version of the tournament as the beginning of something that could grow into a huge sports asset.
It seems totally unrealistic that Wrexham might one day draw the kind of attention that mega clubs around the world do in the US, but Harvey has nothing of the sort. . Shows like “Welcome to Wrexham” Harvey said it helped accelerate a previously unheard-of bond with the club.
“You can’t reach a league higher than the Premier League,” Harvey said. severely criticized“But logically speaking, if people have traveled with us from the fifth tier, we would have been more popular in the United States by the time we played at that level than any of the current big names.” And in fact people have been with us the whole time so it’s probably more popular. It’s a generational thing.It becomes more of a part of your life, a part of your DNA.We haven’t taken full advantage of all these benefits and we’re going to be 10 The year will be, and at that stage we can look back on[this season]as where it all started.”\
(Photo: Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)
