'Welcome to Wrexham' is a Winner
What happens with Deadpool and Mac from 'Always Sunny' buy a soccer team? Find out in FX's 'Welcome to Wrexham.'
To quote the great Neil Young, only love can break your heart. This is the paradox facing every sports fan on the planet. You sacrifice your leisure time to observe events that you have no control over, virtually certain that your heart will be kicked around like a soccer ball. It’s “fun” until it isn’t, and when it’s not fun, it can really, truly, suck. But if your team is the lucky one to come out on top, you get to experience the purist joy imaginable.
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If you don’t watch sports, it’s nearly impossible to describe the emotional roller-coaster fans go through every season. However, the new docuseries Welcome To Wrexham – which premieres Wednesday, Aug. 24 at 10pm on FX – articulates the highs-and-lows of sports fandom as best as possible. Ostensibly, Welcome To Wrexham is about a pair of Hollywood stars (Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney) who buy a low-level soccer team in Wales. But it’s not a sports documentary; it’s a documentary about being a sports fan, and what that means to individual supporters, players, communities, and, yes, celebrity owners.
When pitching the Wrexham community owners on their bid, McElhenney reveals the show’s true thesis statement:
“When I tell people that the Eagles winning the Super Bowl was one of the greatest days of my life – it was top 5 greatest days of my life – people who are supporters of clubs and sporting fans across the world know exactly what I’m talking about,” McElhenney tells them over Zoom. “And I mean it. I put it up there with the birth of my children and my wedding day. Not because of what happened on the field, but because of what it meant to an entire community of people, and to my relationships with my friends and my family members and the entire city of Philadelphia.”
Shortly thereafter, the supporters overwhelmingly vote for McElhenney and Reynolds’ bid.
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One of the most refreshing things about the first two episodes of the show is that they reckon with the question of celebrity ownership (it helps that both actors have a self-deprecating sense of humor, a rare quality in sports owners). On the one hand, the club and its long-suffering fans are excited to have some famous faces with deep pockets taking control. However, this brings an uncertainty to the club’s future, as the owners have no experience running a football club, and the players and coaches know that the old standard won’t be enough.
It’s cliche to say that sports brings people together, but Welcome to Wrexham makes a powerful case for the sincerity behind that sentiment. Whether or not you follow English football (or even sports in general), you’ll fall for the show’s charm. That’s a big win.
New episodes of Welcome to Wrexham air Wednesdays at 10pm ET on FX. Use the link below to sign up for Sling Blue with FX.