‘Ted Lasso’ puts up a banner in Medford to cheer on Brenden Aaronson at the World Cup

“I’ve used the word ‘surreal’ too many times so I can’t really use it again — but it is,” Brenden’s father, Rusty Aaronson, told The Inquirer.

The banner in Brenden Aaronson's honor at Kirby's Mill in Medford.Read moreJonathan Tannenwald / Staff

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Updated Nov. 16, 2022, 9:57 p.m. ET

Published Nov. 16, 2022, 6:19 p.m. ET

The latest viral sensation from Apple TV’s soccer-themed drama “Ted Lasso” has brought the spotlight home to America.

Ahead of the kickoff of the World Cup this weekend, the show’s marketers teamed up with U.S. Soccer to mount billboards or banners in the hometowns of all 26 players and manager Gregg Berhalter. Each billboard has a personalized message signed by Ted Lasso, the head coach of the fictional AFC Richmond played by Jason Sudeikis.

For Medford’s Brenden Aaronson, the banner is hung on an exterior wall of a building at Kirby’s Mill, a cluster of old sawmill buildings on Church Road where it crosses the southwest branch of Rancocas Creek. The biggest of the buildings is now home to the Medford Historical Society.

The message on the banner is written in a blue font on a yellow background that matches the “BELIEVE” sign Lasso posted in Richmond’s locker room. It features a reference to a song that fans of Aaronson’s English Premier League club, Leeds United, wrote to the tune of Estelle’s “American Boy.”

The full message, in all capital letters (and Lasso’s imperfect grammar), reads:

Brenden,

It makes sense that you were raised in Medford whose tagline is “Historic in Nature,” ‘cause that’s how I’d describe the way you play the game. Heck, folks are even callin’ you “The American Boy.”

I know how tough it can be as an American overseas. A cookie’s a biscuit. Chips are fries. Pants are underwear. And don’t even get me started on “fanny pack.”

But what remains the same no matter what side of the pond you’re on, is that you were barn to be on the USMNT. You were barn to play in the games of all games. And you were barn to go all the way.

This billboard’s on a barn, right? ‘Cause if not this joke isn’t gonna make sense.

Another American Boy,

Ted Lasso

From one barn to another

If you drive over to see the banner for yourself, you’ll have to do a bit of searching. It’s mounted on the back side of one of the buildings, facing the creek instead of the street.

But that’s a fitting metaphor for a player who wasn’t a hotshot youth prospect. He made just two U.S. youth team camps before earning his first senior U.S. national team call-up in late 2019.

Though the Union knew about Aaronson before he was a teenager, he didn’t join the club’s full-time youth academy until after his freshman year at Shawnee High School. He had originally planned to go to college in Indiana, but changed his mind in the late summer of 2018 and decided to turn pro.

The use of an old barn also conjures up memories of another South Jersey soccer shrine. Delran native Carli Lloyd, who now lives in Medford, trained for years at the “Blue Barn” indoor facility at the recreational center in Evesham Township. The court where she worked out was named in her honor in 2015.

A few days ago, the U.S. men’s team tweeted a photo of Aaronson with the caption “Here for the fans in Medford, Leeds, everywhere in between, and beyond.” When Lloyd saw it, she posted a hand-waving emoji to let the world know she was one of them.

Now Aaronson is about to step onto the biggest stage of all. And Brenden’s father, Rusty Aaronson, told The Inquirer that he’s heard personally from Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt — the longtime soccer fan who plays Lasso’s top assistant, Coach Beard — that they’re big fans.

‘It’s going to become real’

“I’ve used the word ‘surreal’ too many times so I can’t really use it again — but it is,” Rusty Aaronson told The Inquirer on Wednesday at an indoor soccer facility he runs in Medford, about two miles from the banner. He and his wife Janell will fly to Qatar for the World Cup later this week.

“I think when we get there on Friday, it’s going to become real,” Rusty Aaronson said. “I said that about Leeds, I said that about Salzburg, I said that about the Union.”

When Aaronson scored in the U.S.’s World Cup-qualifying home opener last fall, Rusty was with Janell in the stands.

“I get emotional rarely,” he said. “We were dancing around like a couple little school girls, hugging and jumping.”

The emotions flowed again when they were in the stands for Brenden’s first goal for Leeds on Aug. 21. His high-pressing steal and score on Chelsea goalkeeper Édouard Mendy went viral on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

“I can’t even imagine when we’re watching him warm up [for] the first game against Wales and then England” at the World Cup, Rusty said. “ ‘Proud moment’ is an understatement.”

As the father was talking, a door opened nearby, and his youngest son walked in. Paxten Aaronson is soon to start his own European adventure, leaving the Union to sign with Germany’s Eintracht Frankfurt in another big-money deal.

He didn’t want to talk about that — he’s had a lifetime of media training already for a 19-year-old — but he was thrilled to talk about his brother.

“I just kind of reflect and remember when me and my brother were both young, training at the fields over here, training in my backyard, being in the basement with my dad,” Paxten said. “And just always looking into the future and reminiscing about times where we’d get to play in front of the big crowds, get to play on the world’s biggest stage, which is the World Cup. Now that my brother gets the opportunity to play in that and represent his country, and what he’s accomplished and earned over his past several years of pro life, and to do it at such a young age, it’s just amazing.”