Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney level up UK’s Wrexham football club

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney discuss their passion for the Welsh football club that they bought, and the team’s turnaround from underdogs to international sensation.

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I have to ask first of all are we calling it soccer or football we say football uh you generally are just using your feet in in this sport but then American Football H you’re not really using your feet that much it’s an Underdog Story made for TV literally reom AFC the Beloved and historic UK soccer team now on a spectacular rise unbelievable from braxon after a longtime losing streak the club scooped up by celebrity backers Ryan Reynolds and Rob meleny in 2021 if I were going to go bankrupt with anybody on planet Earth it would be Rob mhen so that’s what we’re doing and we are well on our way yeah the duo ownership a reversal of Fortunes for the team both on and off the field and all documented in the critically acclaimed TV show Welcome to rexam back for its third season on FX and streaming on Hulu I’ll wake up on first thing I think is we’ve really been taken over by two Hollywood Superstars I love building things and you know growing things and telling stories but nothing it uh occupies the space in my mind heart and soul that more than recks him actor Ryan Reynolds has been telling stories for over 30 years from starring in The Proposal oh my God what is that it’s the morning to portraying the sarcastic superhero Deadpool did I leave the stove on and as a businessman for Adventures like mintmobile Reynolds joining forces with fellow funny guy writer and actor Rob meleny of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia everybody are you ready bam I reached out to Rob I think I dm’d him I don’t know was it a year later or less than a year later I got a call from Rob saying uh how would you like to partner up in this extremely outside the box risky financially stupid but emotionally uh immersive uh project I had this idea for the football team I thought wow there’s very few people that I know who are as entrepreneurial as Ryan who I believe I could get along with and yet we each brought something different to the table slid into the DMS taking your shot it’s like a modern day love story it really is from inbox to goaly box the idea taking them to a small town in Wales why rexam but how did you find them and what Drew you to Rex we wanted to find a town that we that we could identify with for me uh the community I grew up in in Philadelphia and for Ryan he grew up with a in a very blue collar workingclass family and and background and we knew we wanted to find people that um that who we knew or at least we felt we knew it sort of checked every box checking every box but first they say they had to earn the town’s trust it’s just a footballing town it’s hard to describe if you’re not from here I guess they welcomed us with a healthy sense of skepticism which we expected but not cynicism which we um really respected that’s the way we’ve always approached reom which is let’s go in and listen before we talk let’s try to understand what the community wants what the club wants and let’s give them the resources in the exposure to to get that rexam AFC has been around for over 150 years the third oldest soccer team on Earth how my family watched rexim and my family before that have watched rexim and that’s how it’s always been so yeah but in recent decades the men’s team losing their way to their lowest ever ranking in the the 2019 2020 season in late 2020 Reynolds and M Henny’s purchase of the club bringing in some much needed cash and Hollywood Flash the Emmy winning welcome to reom now documenting the dreams and dramas of this working class City’s team our star player wound up in the emergency room was it difficult to let these cameras in to let them see kind of the not only the highs but the lows as well I struggled with it a little bit yeah um at the beginning when we sat down to look at documentary footage there’s been so many times where I see myself and I’m humiliated by the way I acted in a particular moment and I realized that has to go in because it happened it’s real life reom now winning more than they have in two decades it’s easy to just focus on the wins in life but you know it’s really important to make sure that kids also see that you lose you know Dad lost today I extended that feeling of authenticity the show and its Soccer Stars captivating audiences around the world drawing parallels to the hit scripted show Ted lasso now I know at least one thing about football even earning the town a visit from King Charles and queen Camila if this club does well the town will do well the two are inextricably linked what does this community mean to you after three years and how have they embraced you I’ve had to start changing um my sheets my bed sheets more often almost cut this out because I sweat at night okay okay I’m having a physiological reaction to this wanting so badly to deliver what we’ve promised this town what they’ve done for us is welcome us into their Community I hope that we’ve delivered on each one of our our promises and with each time we do that we we get a little bit more welcome into the community and then I sweat a little bit less the one of the kindest things I think anybody’s ever said was that that we were honorary Welshman Wales has really captured a huge piece of my heart um to be considered part of that group and that community on some level any level means more to me than anything anything on Earth