{"id":924,"date":"2026-05-13T06:50:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/?p=924"},"modified":"2026-05-13T06:50:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:50:33","slug":"ted-lasso-actor-signs-for-us-second-tier-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/?p=924","title":{"rendered":"Ted Lasso actor signs for US second-tier club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Ted Lasso actor Cristo Fernandez has taken his role as a footballer from the small screen to the soccer pitch after signing a professional contract with U.S. second-tier side El Paso Locomotive FC.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Fernandez, who played youth football in Mexico before stepping away from the sport at the age of 15 due to a knee injury, portrayed Dani Rojas in the hit Apple TV+ show about a British team with a U.S. coach.<\/p>\n<p>On the sidelines of his acting career, Fernandez, 35, had also been pursuing a return to professional football and trained with Major League Soccer side Chicago Fire\u2019s reserves earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>Before signing for El Paso on Tuesday, he underwent a two-month trial with the USL Championship club which also included a pre-season appearance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(Football) has always been a huge part of my life and identity, and no matter where life has taken me, the dream of competing professionally never truly left my heart,\u201d Fernandez said on the club website.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe I\u2019m just a crazy man with crazy dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>El Paso, founded in 2018, are fourth in Group B of the USL Championship standings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCristo is a great addition to our roster, adding another attacking threat to our forward line,\u201d the club\u2019s head coach Junior Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis passion for the game and leadership qualities for our locker room allow us to continue growing the positive culture we strive for as a club.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ted Lasso actor Cristo Fernandez has taken his role as a footballer from the small screen to the soccer pitch after signing a professional contract with U.S. second-tier side El Paso Locomotive FC. Fernandez, who played youth football in Mexico before stepping away from the sport at the age of 15 due to a knee [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}