{"id":501142,"date":"2026-03-03T11:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501142\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T11:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:57:07","slug":"football-is-life-dani-rojas-from-ted-lasso-is-on-trial-at-a-usl-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501142\/","title":{"rendered":"Football is life! &#8216;Dani Rojas&#8217; from Ted Lasso is on trial at a USL club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Joey Lynch<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a>Joey Lynch is a Melbourne-based sports journalist and AYA cancer advocate. Primarily working on football, he has covered the Socceroos, Matildas and A-Leagues for ESPN for over a decade.<\/p>\n<p>Multiple Authors<\/p>\n<p>Mar 2, 2026, 11:59 PM ET<img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Ted Lasso star Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez, 35, is reportedly on trial with El Paso Locomotive.\u00a0Kyle Terada-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>Cristo Fern\u00e1ndez, beloved by fans the world over for his role as Dani Rojas in the hit television show Ted Lasso, looks set to make his soccer dreams leap from the silver screen to reality as he trials with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/usa.usl.1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">USL Championship<\/a> side <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/soccer\/club\/_\/id\/19407\/el-paso-locomotive-fc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">El Paso Locomotive FC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Tom_Hindle_\/status\/2028499831111463401?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Goal<\/a> has reported that Fern\u00e1ndez, 35, logged half-an-hour for Locomotive in their win against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team\/_\/id\/19408\/new-mexico-united\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New Mexico United<\/a> over the weekend, with the Junior Gonzalez-coached side set to determine if they will sign the actor-turned-soccer player to a contract in the coming week.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s seemingly not the first club that Fern\u00e1ndez has looked to land with ahead of the coming season, with <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/amcalabrese12\/status\/2028507017271189521?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">MIR97 Media<\/a> subsequently reporting that he had also logged time with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team\/_\/id\/22217\/chicago-fire-fc-ii\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chicago Fire II<\/a> a few weeks ago and even scored in a win over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/usa.usl.l1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">USL League One<\/a> outfit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/soccer\/club\/_\/id\/19995\/forward-madison-fc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Forward Madison FC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There was no word on if he took a penalty in either game &#8212; nor if there were any greyhounds attempting to cross the pitch when he did so &#8212; but in the video below (just click to the right!) you can clearly see Fern\u00e1ndez celebrating El Paso&#8217;s win with his teammates.<\/p>\n<p>An avid soccer fan who is can often be found attending professional matches, Fern\u00e1ndez&#8217;s attempt to land with El Paso don&#8217;t so much represent a new path so much as a return to the old one. A promising player in his youth, Fern\u00e1ndez suffered a serious knee injury with hometown side Tecos F\u00fatbol Club when he was 15 years old, and subsequently turned to acting at university.<\/p>\n<p>Soccer players stepping onto the screen, of course, isn&#8217;t exactly a new phenomena; the likes of Vinnie Jones and the incomparable Eric Cantona amongst those who traded their boots for the bright lights of Hollywood. The reverse path isn&#8217;t as common but not unheard of, either, with Sean Connery playing for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team\/_\/id\/10605\/bonnyrigg-rose\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bonnyrigg Rose<\/a> as a youngster and, according to legend, offered a contract Sir Matt Busby after impressing in a kickabout against a side the legendary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team\/_\/id\/360\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Manchester United<\/a> boss happened to be scouting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joey Lynch CloseJoey Lynch is a Melbourne-based sports journalist and AYA cancer advocate. Primarily working on football, he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-501142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}