Three months after launch, FIFA 23 fans are noticing the commentary has some amusing Easter eggs, coming from Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny, the celebrity owners of Wrexham AFC.
Wrexham may be the third-oldest professional soccer team in the world, but in real life they compete in English football’s National League, which is five rungs down from the top dogs in the Premier League.
Reynolds’ and McElhenney acquired Wrexham as of February 2021, and that made the club fodder for the 2022 docuseries Welcome to Wrexham, which premiered on FX in August. FIFA 22 (the 2021 game) included Wrexham AFC in its “Rest of World” menagerie as a nod to pop culture’s larger interest in the smaller side. Normally, EA Sports’ flagship soccer franchise does not include any out-of-league (i.e., not fully professional) clubs.
FIFA 23 brought the Dragons back — along with some in-booth commentary from Reynolds and McElhenny, apparently. Over the holidays, fans began noticing that if you match Wrexham with Liverpool (any mode, any location), you get Ryan & Rob in the booth with a suspender-popping, shade-throwing intro. Take a gander:
We can only assume that no one noticed this because either a) none have cared to play Wales’ 1-star (65 attacking, 62 midfield, 62 defense) Wrexham versus Merseyside’s 5-star (84-82-85) Reds. Or, if they did, they buttoned through the pre-game commentary from Derek Rae and Stewart Robson to get on with the ass-beating.
Someone else over the weekend noticed that if Wrexham play Stockport County — a Wrexham rival promoted to the EFL’s League Two — R&R show up with this table-setter:
We reached out to EA Sports to ask if fans could expect additional commentary Easter eggs from Rob McElhenny and Ryan Reynolds, but we didn’t hear back this afternoon. Keep plugging, kids. We doubt they got this talkative pair in the booth for just two lines.