FIFA 23 players discover Ryan Reynolds cameos months after launch

FIFA 23 players are delighted after discovering that Ryan Reynolds actually has a role in the game.

It’s all thanks to the Vancouver funnyman’s co-ownership of Wales’ Wrexham AFC, the world’s third-oldest football club, alongside It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Rob McElhenney. As a result of that increased exposure, EA Vancouver’s last two FIFA games have featured Wrexham as a playable team, although we’re only now finding out, three months after FIFA 23 released, that Reynolds and McElhenney actually recorded lines for EA’s latest soccer sim.

Via Polygon, a match between Wrexham and Liverpool will actually have regular commentators Derek Rae and Stewart Robson briefly pass the mics over to Reynolds and McElhenney for some banter. In this case, the pair joke that the “very small” club of Liverpool is up against the “massive” Wrexham. The Wrexham owners can also be heard if you have the club play against rival team Stockport County.

As it stands, it’s unclear whether any other Wrexham match-ups feature Reynolds and McElhenney voiceover. That said, now that people know about this, we may very well come across the pair elsewhere in FIFA 23. It’s likely that people never even knew about any of this because Wrexham is a one-star club, so players presumably weren’t actually using the team — at least, not against bigger clubs like Liverpool.

The story of Wrexham AFC is a fascinating one, as the low-ranking Welsh team was going through a particularly rough patch amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Enter Reynolds and McElhenney, who purchased the club in November 2020 and worked to improve its standings. That entire journey is covered extensively in Welcome to Wrexham, an 18-episode FX docuseries streaming on Disney+ in Canada.

In related news, Reynolds recently renewed hope for his low-cost Mint Mobile carrier coming to Canada.

Image credit: FX