What’s Beard Reading? (3.02: “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea”)
Last week, I noted that attention to detail is one of the elements that takes Ted Lasso to the next level. We see this clearly in the book choice of Season 3, Episode 2 (“(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea”). There are several twists, each with their own individual significance and that together reinforce a central message of the show.
First, it’s Ted, not Beard who’s shown to be reading this week. It takes Beard by surprise when he walks into the office to see Ted at the desk with book in hand. What’s surprising is not that Ted is reading. We’ve seen Ted with other books before. Even in the first episode on the plane over to London, Ted is reading Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums. And, remember, he’s the one who selects books as gifts for the team, personalized to each player’s own particular challenge to work through.
But Ted does not read soccer books, as he’s doing here. And his posture — reading at the desk — mirrors what we often see Beard doing. So naturally Beard is a little confused, and he asks Ted what we’re all wondering: “What are you doing?” Ted responds in his typically cheery manner, “Oh, just taking a peek at one of these soccer strategy books you’ve always got your nose in.”
It’s not just any soccer book: it’s a throwback to the pilot episode and to a central motif of the show. Ted is reading Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, a classic study of the development of this beautiful game. With its blend of soccer techniques with social history, it’s exactly the kind of book that Coach Beard would love. And in fact it’s a book we have seen Beard reading, in the initial episode.
As Ted’s reading his Kerouc on the flight, Beard is reading Wilson. Since it’s the first time we see Beard, the book is used to establish his character, and to underscore the distinction between the two coaches. “Another soccer book?” Ted asks. “Coach, you are a sponge.” Beard is clearly the one charged with all the technical aspects of the coaching duties while Ted attends to the inspirational. Even as he’s trying to learn more about football this season (hinted at by this reading choice), he can’t quite overcome his bent toward the interpersonal to really throw himself into the demanding detail that something like Wilson’s tome requires.
Wilson’s title also gestures toward one of Ted’s main inspirations: legendary college basketball coach John Wooden and his Pyramid of Success. Throughout his coaching career, Wooden identified 25 traits necessary for success (on the court and off) and mapped them onto a pyramid, which he has shared with the world through books and courses and hand-signed copies. One of these copies shows up on the wall of Beard and Ted’s office. And the principles permeate Ted’s approach to coaching, especially the foundational ones of “friendship,” “loyalty,” “cooperation,” and “enthusiasm.”
Significantly, it’s this picture that Nate is looking intently at before Richmond’s game with Brentford in the final episode of Season 2. Nate is wrapped up in tactics, saying they’d be “fools” not to use his “false nine” formation. This episode, fittingly, is called “Inverting the Pyramid of Success,” and interestingly enough, we catch a glimpse of Beard once again reading Wilson’s book. But while the title of Wilson’s book references a “pyramid,” it’s a different pyramid from Wooden’s, which helps to show the distinction between Beard and Nate.
The pyramid Wilson refers to is simply the quite literal line up of the team on the field, as the author explores the shift from a 1–2–7 line-up of the late 19th century to the modern preference of 4–3–3. Amazon reviews suggest that the book is more analytical than evaluative, which would make it play to Beard’s strengths as technical support for Ted’s aspirational coaching approach. Both are crucial to Richmond’s success.
Nate, on the other hand, thinks he can go it alone. “Skill” and “initiative” (both strengths of Nate) are indeed features of Wooden’s pyramid, but as it seems the show is emphasizing, the part they play in success must build upon the central character traits that Ted so imbues and inculcates in his team. Beard is clearly also concerned with tactics and technique, demonstrated in his book choices and control of the team’s whiteboard. But he knows that tactics alone won’t lead to success.
Nate instead is fixated with the top of the pyramid — “competitive greatness.” But sadly, as the show seems poised to bear out, Nate will learn the hard way that success is one pyramid that, unlike team formations, cannot be inverted.
Other Installments of “What’s Beard Reading?” (for Season 3):
Episode 1, “Smells Like Mean Spirit”
Episode 7, “The Strings That Bind Us”
Episode 8, “We’ll Never Have Paris”
Episode 9, “La Locker Room Aux Folles”
