Brett Goldstein Reveals the Best Footballer in the "Ted Lasso" Cast

The question of who the best real-life footballer in the "Ted Lasso" cast is a "tricky one to answer," at least according to Brett Goldstein, who stars as Roy Kent in the show.

"You've got [Cristo Fernández], who was a professional," Goldstein tells POPSUGAR. "You've got Moe Hashim, also a professional. Phil Dunster is very good. They're all very good." Still, at the end of the day, he knows who he'd pick. "Gun to head, if you said you can only play one player, I'd go with Moe Hashim, who is just an all-around f*cking great player. He's a god in the game."

There are a lot of options to choose from, as it turns out that all the players on the show actually do know how to play. "It was vital that all the team really could play football, so it was absolutely part of their audition process," the show's casting director Theo Park told IndieWire in 2021. "They had to do normal scenes acting, and then they had to show us their football skills on tape as well."

Still, some of the players are more experienced than others — including Fernández. "Back home in Guadalajara, Mexico, where I'm from, I played not the top level, like first edition, but I played professionally in the third and second division," he said in an interview with Screen Times. "That was my thing. Football was my passion since I was a little kid until now."

On the other hand, despite knowing his way around the game, Dunster isn't exactly a pro, even though he plays one of the show's football stars. "I'm not a professional footballer. It takes a lot of time and good editors, which luckily we have, to make me look like Jamie Tartt," he told the AV Club in 2021. "In terms of training, we spent a lot of time training to make sure we get it right."

"Ted Lasso" season three premiered on AppleTV+ on 15 March. Check out POPSUGAR's interview with the cast above.