How Ryan Reynolds & Co. bought Wrexham's path to promotion - ESPN

I still think about him all the time, and I was thinking about him again last weekend. You might remember him, too, since I wrote about him a couple of years ago.

Back in 2015 or '16, I was playing in a rec league soccer game on a Thursday night in Los Angeles. There were very few — if any — other former collegiate soccer players in this league, so I always clocked the handful of other players who stood out. We were winning by a lot, but this other team had one midfielder, a stocky, shaggy-haired dude dressed all in black who was pretty good on the ball and at least made it hard for me to find space and push the ball forward.

The ref blew the halftime whistle, but as everyone else walked over to the sideline, this guy removed his shin guards. He then jogged over to give me a high-five and a half-hug. Confused, I accepted and said, «Game's not over. It's halftime.»

Then he said three words I've never forgotten — "'Deadpool' premiere, bro" — before walking straight off the field and into the parking lot.

I haven't seen him again since that moment, but he had to be celebrating last weekend, right?

That was when Wrexham became the first team in the history of organized English soccer to earn three successive promotions. Just a couple of years ago, they were a semiprofessional team that no one in America had ever heard of. Now, they're co-owned by the guy who plays Deadpool.

Wrexham have become one of the most popular European soccer clubs in the United States because of the docuseries «Welcome to Wrexham» (stream on Disney+) that the team was built around — er, that was built around the team. And they're just one more promotion away from the Premier League.

Reynolds and «It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia» star Rob McElhenney