Ted Lasso Season 3: Will Zava Be The Key To AFC Richmond’s Success?

It’s all smiles for the Greyhounds after Ted Lasso’s latest episode as superstar footballer Zava becomes the team’s newest addition! And from the looks of it, he might be the one to take them all the way!

The management team certainly took a gamble on this one, knowing very well that his “diva” personality could be a threat to the close-knit family they’ve created at Richmond. But so far, it doesn’t seem like Zava has been much of a problem to anyone (well, except for Jamie).

Zava has officially signed AFC Richmond’s contract so it’s safe to say that he’ll be staying with them till the end of the tournament. It would be almost impossible for Zava to join any other team now.

How did Zava join AFC Richmond?

Zava, played by Maximilian Osinski, is a world-class striker from Italy. He leaves his football club there to move to England for his wife, and he announces that he wants to play in the Premiere League.

This news obviously has all the teams extremely excited and so they all begin setting up meetings with Zava to get him to join their team. Finally, through Higgins’ secret sources, we find out that Zava is about to sign with Chelsea.

However, Rupert Mannion decides that he’s not going to give up without a fight, and so does Rebecca.

When Zava comes to watch Richmond’s first match against Chelsea, Rupert and Rebecca both try their hand at convincing Zava to switch teams, before he makes his affiliation to Chelsea official. Rupert goes the sweet-talking route, while Rebecca tries the complete opposite: sour-yelling, like Keeley says.

After Rupert finishes his talk with Zava, Rebecca finds Zava to try her luck with persuading him. But instead of doing it the polite way, she calls him out for being pretentious and only wanting to sign with the best team to avoid humiliation.

Rebecca’s yelling seems to work because just before Zava is about to sign Chelsea’s contract on live television, he announces that he has chosen to play for Richmond instead.

Will Zava stay for the entire season?

Soon after Zava reveals that he wants to play for AFC Richmond, Higgins gets him to sign an electronic contract. This means that Zava joining the team is now official and he will definitely be staying for the rest of the Premiere League.

If you’re still worried about the “electronic” part of the contract, don’t worry; it’s 100% legally binding. So no one, not even Rupert, can swoop in and steal Zava from Richmond now.

In just one episode, Zava has proved to be a great asset for Richmond. The team is currently in third place, only below Manchester City and West Ham United. Although it wouldn’t be fair to say that Zava single-handedly got them to this point, he has played a significant role in their success so far.

Richmond is still yet to play against West ham United, a match I’m sure the writers have reserved an entire episode for, but at the rate that they’re winning, beating West Ham doesn’t seem so impossible after all.

Zava has definitely given all the players and the management team at AFC Richmond more hope of winning the championship trophy this time.

Is Zava getting along with all his teammates?

Although Rebecca and all the coaches were worried that Zava might be a handful to manage, it doesn’t appear that way, atleast for now.

So far, Zava is gelling really well with his teammates. Apart from the 4 lockers, a TV and a personal meditating couch, he’s also got all his teammates sort of worshipping him. None of the players are fazed by the special treatment that Zava is getting and he seems to be enjoying it as well.

But at some point, his massive ego is going to start causing problems. In future episodes, he might take advantage of his teammates’ loyalty, or maybe he’ll start using his influence over the coaches to make himself the star of every game, which he is actually already doing with his “4-5-1” strategy from episode 3.

The only one who isn’t pleased with Zava’s arrival is Jamie Tartt, which is no surprise since he was the Zava of the team until very recently. He can’t seem to understand why everyone is so fascinated by Zava and he definitely isn’t interested in giving Zava the attention he craves.

Now that Roy has agreed to coach Jamie to play as good as Zava, we might see the two players coming head-to-head in the following episodes. My guess is that their rivalry will interfere with one of their matches and have a negative effect on the outcome of the game.

But, if Jamie was able to get past his pride and learn teamwork in the previous seasons, I’m sure he’ll be able to hash out his differences with Zava soon enough for them both to learn to play as a team.

Since season 3 is expected to be the last one, I don’t think the writers intend on dragging out this plotline for too long. We still have 9 more episodes to go and there’s plenty more to over.

Episode 4 of Ted Lasso season 3 will release on Apple TV+ on April 5, 2023.

About Ted Lasso

Ted Lasso is an American sports-comedy streaming TV series developed by Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis, Joe Kelly, and Brendan Hunt. It’s based on a character of the same name that Sudeikis first portrayed in a series of promos for NBC Sports’ coverage of the Premier League.

It follows the life of Ted Lasso, a coach of college-level American football who is unexpectedly recruited to coach an English Premier League team, AFC Richmond, despite having no experience at all in association football.

It stars Sudeikis as the titular character, Ted Lasso, joined by Hannah Waddingham, Jeremy Swift, Phil Dunster, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, Nick Mohammed, Juno Temple, and Sarah Niles among many others.