Jamie Tartt's Winning Goal in 'Ted Lasso' Was Made by the Actual Actor (2024)

Jason Sudeikis is an actor who has been a part of American pop culture for more than two decades. As a writer on Saturday Night Live in the early 2000s, Sudeikis eventually became one of the most popular cast members on the show, before ultimately transitioning to feature film success. Now, with his new Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso, Sudeikis is earning acclaim once again. Interestingly enough, however, it isn’t Sudeikis, but a young actor named Phil Dunster, who has really become one of the breakout stars of Ted Lasso — and recently, a viral video shows the talented performer actually scoring his character’s winning goal.

‘Ted Lasso’ has become a massive success

Ted Lasso premiered on Apple TV+ in August 2020. At first, the show debuted with a mere three episodes but was quickly followed by weekly installments. The show, based on a character created by Jason Sudeikis for NBC Sports’ coverage of the Premier League, became a runaway hit, with fans praising not just the work done by Sudeikis as the title character, Ted Lasso, but the overall tone and good humor of the series as well. For Sudeikis, the series has served as a brand-new chapter in his career, one that is quite possibly his most successful and lucrative to date. In July 2021, the second season of Ted Lasso started streaming, with 12 episodes available for fans to enjoy.

It isn’t just viewers who love Ted Lasso. Critics have universally praised the series, and in the year since it debuted, it has received 20 Primetime Emmy nominations, with Sudeikis winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy. In addition to Sudeikis, other stars have made a splash on Ted Lasso, including Phil Dunster as Jamie Tartt.

How did Phil Dunster’s character manage to make the winning goal?

As Jamie Tartt, Phil Dunster plays a character who played for AFC Richmond on loan before returning to Manchester City. Egotistical and self-centered, Jamie butts heads with Ted Lasso several times over the course of the first season as well as the second. During one notable moment in the second season, Jamie scores a rare goal, one that is easily the highlight of the episode.

In real life, Dunster must have a real soccer pro streak in him, as revealed by some behind-the-scenes footage shared by his co-star, Brendan Hunt. In the video, shared to Hunt’s Twitter account, fans can see Dunster scoring the goal for real, well before the stadium and fans were digitally inserted. “On the left of your screen, Jamie Tartt is setting up for the freekick,” Hunt says in the video. “There’s no pressure here, it’s all CGI,” the actor joked.

What’s next for ‘Ted Lasso’?

Phil Dunster doesn’t have the title of sports star on his resume, but based on that winning goal in Ted Lasso, he might as well. Dunster, an English-born actor, has appeared in movies like Murder on the Orient Express and Judy, but he’s best known for the character of Jamie Tartt in Ted Lasso. Fortunately, fans should have even more opportunities to enjoy the character, as well as the rest of the show’s performers, since Ted Lasso has been renewed for a third season. While no release date has been set yet for the third season of the hit Apple TV+ series, it seems likely that it will be available to stream sometime in the summer of 2022.