{"id":543673,"date":"2026-07-16T02:38:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T02:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/543673\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T02:38:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T02:38:27","slug":"meet-ted-lasso-star-cristo-fernandez-who-turned-his-on-screen-footballer-role-into-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/543673\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Ted Lasso star Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez, who turned his on-screen footballer role into reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Ted Lasso actor Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez, who stars on the TV series as happy-go-lucky football player Dani Rojas, made his professional debut on the pitch last Saturday, playing for El Paso Locomotive FC in its \u2060USL Cup match against New Mexico United.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A favourite among Ted Lasso fans, Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s character has a popular catchphrase, \u201cFootball is life\u201d, and it seems that sentiment is also true for the 35-year-old actor, who served as a coin toss assistant at the Fifa World Cup 2026 in the match between Canada and South Africa on June 28.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cristo Fernandez plays as a forward for El Paso Locomotive FC. Photo: @cristofernandez.mx\/Instagram\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/d172630c-cbd7-4c50-9d23-2ea3b2d1619f_f4cd8109.jpg\" title=\"Cristo Fernandez plays as a forward for El Paso Locomotive FC. Photo: @cristofernandez.mx\/Instagram\"\/>Cristo Fernandez plays as a forward for El Paso Locomotive FC. Photo: @cristofernandez.mx\/Instagram<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">With Season 4 of Ted Lasso set to premiere on August 5, here\u2019s everything you need to know about actor \u2013 and El Paso Locomotive\u2019s forward \u2013 Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez.<\/p>\n<p>When did Fern\u00e1ndez start playing football?<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez grew up playing football. Photo: @charlyfutbol\/Instagram\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/26c11020-b399-4458-87e7-8b6b7ebadf15_7390c88c.jpg\" title=\"Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez grew up playing football. Photo: @charlyfutbol\/Instagram\"\/>Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez grew up playing football. Photo: @charlyfutbol\/Instagram<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez was born on January 27, 1991, in Guadalajara, Mexico. He grew up loving football and played at youth level with Tecos FC in Mexico.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cMy grandma and my mom used to say, \u2018Crist\u00f3bal only speaks, breathes, talks, dreams, everything f\u00fatbol\u2019 \u2013 soccer was literally my life,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez told NBC News in an interview in 2021.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Unfortunately, Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s plans of pursuing a professional football career were derailed by a serious knee injury, which forced him to step away from the sport at the age of 15.<\/p>\n<p>How did Fern\u00e1ndez get into acting?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ted Lasso actor Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez, who stars on the TV series as happy-go-lucky football player Dani Rojas, made&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[245,247201,247202,247199,8316,233832,85,46,2079,1326,247197,9517,247200,105,118150,5727,443,247198],"class_list":["post-543673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-canada","tag-cristo-fernandez","tag-dani-rojas","tag-el-paso-locomotive-fc","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-guadalajara","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-marvel","tag-mexico","tag-new-mexico-united","tag-south-africa","tag-southwest-university-park","tag-sports","tag-ted-lasso","tag-texas","tag-uk","tag-universidad-del-valle-de-atemajac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}