{"id":3883,"date":"2026-05-13T00:06:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=3883"},"modified":"2026-05-13T00:06:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:06:57","slug":"football-is-life-ted-lasso-star-cristo-fernandez-lands-deal-with-usl-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=3883","title":{"rendered":"Football Is Life: &#039;Ted Lasso&#039; Star Cristo Fernandez Lands Deal With USL Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>Forward Cristo Fernandez, the actor who portrayed Dani Rojas on the Apple TV series &#8220;Ted Lasso&#8221; has signed with El Paso Locomotive FC of the USL Championship to play soccer professionally.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>Terms of the deal announced Tuesday, which still must be approved by the second-tier league and soccer federation, were not disclosed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>Fernandez earned the deal after a two-month trial with the team, appearing in a preseason match against New Mexico United. He played soccer at the youth level before an injury at the age of 15 led him to acting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>&#8220;No matter where life has taken me, the dream of competing professionally never truly left my heart,&#8221; Fernandez said. &#8220;I\u2019m incredibly grateful to El Paso Locomotive FC \u2014 the club, coaches, staff, and especially my teammates \u2014 for opening the doors and giving me the opportunity to compete from day one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>Locomotive coach Junior Gonzalez said Fernandez is a great addition, giving them another attacking threat while bringing passion and leadership to the locker room.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6>The USL Championship acts as the second tier of the American soccer pyramid, sitting directly below MLS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-ace7f8b6><i>The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Forward Cristo Fernandez, the actor who portrayed Dani Rojas on the Apple TV series &#8220;Ted Lasso&#8221; has signed with El Paso Locomotive FC of the USL Championship to play soccer professionally. Terms of the deal announced Tuesday, which still must be approved by the second-tier league and soccer federation, were not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}