Once upon a time, I was playing in a rec league soccer game on a Thursday night in Los Angeles. It was a seven-a-side league, and most teams tended to play with a single midfielder. That's where I played for our team, and the midfielder for the other team was quite good. This was not a high-quality league; it wasn't filled with other former collegiate players and although I am washed up, I could still pretty easily push forward with the ball and then recover back in plenty of time. I never had to worry about what the other team's midfielder was doing.
This guy, though, had some juice on the ball and was dangerous in space, so I spent more of the game than normal hanging deeper and making sure he couldn't pick up a full head of steam. The halftime whistle blew; we were up by two of three goals. As I was walking toward the sideline, he tapped me on the shoulder, dapped me up, and said, "Good game, man."
"Game's not over," I said. "It's halftime."
"I'm out," he replied. "'Deadpool' premiere, bro."
He left; I don't think he had a bag or a wallet or car keys or a water bottle or sneakers; he walked directly off the field after talking to me. I never saw him again. We won the game, but, well ... I guess he won the war?
Eight years later, I'm here, writing a piece about the Welsh soccer team owned by the star of "Deadpool," Ryan Reynolds, who could only afford to buy the soccer team because people cared so much about Deadpool that they'd leave a soccer game at halftime to go watch him do whatever it is Deadpool does. We're getting meta here, but what is the Wrexham experience if not that?
Is Wrexham still the 150-plus-year-old local Welsh club that it was five or 10 years ago? Does it serve the same purpose? Or is its new purpose to provide drama for the FX reality television series, "Welcome to Wrexham"? The two, at least, don't seem like they can exist without each other.
But rather than digging too much deeper into the metaphysics of it all, I want to treat Wrexham in a different way: as a soccer team that's trying to win more soccer games. Reynolds says they want to make it to the Premier League one day. Could it actually happen?
How good are they right now?
Wrexham are leading the National League; if you have an internet connection, you probably know that by now. Ben Foster, a Ringer Podcast Network contributor, saved a penalty against Notts County on Monday to preserve a 3-2 win. They have a three-point lead over Notts County with four games to play. First place automatically gets automatic promotion, and they're on 103 points through 42 matches; that'd be about a 93-point pace in the Premier League.
The National League, of course, is not the Premier League: it's four tiers below. However, Wrexham have played teams outside of the National League and other National League teams have done the same, so with some cross-pollination, you can start to get an estimate of true team strength.
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According to the consultancy Twenty First Group, which rates teams based on a combination of talent estimations and opponent-adjusted performance, Wrexham are the ... 1,265th-best soccer team in the world. They're right around St. Mirren, who are fifth place in the Scottish Premiership, and Al Ahli, who are top of the Saudi Arabian first division. (No, that's not the team Cristiano Ronaldo plays for, either.)
What about just in England, though? TFG rate Wrexham as the 62nd-best team in England. (They're Welsh, but they play in the English league system.) There are 72 teams in the Football League pyramid -- meaning League Two through the Championship -- and another 20 in the Premier League. So, 62nd is quite good for a National League side. In fact, in League Two, only two of the 24 teams (Stockport County and Leyton Orient) are rated higher than Wrexham right now. They're also rated more highly than 10 teams in League One.
In other words, they're about as good as a National League side could ever conceivably be.
Why are they so good?
To start: lots o' money.
Wrexham have an annual wage bill of somewhere in the £3.5 million range. That might not seem like much, but the average National League side is spending right around £1 million on player salaries. The simplest explanation for Wrexham's dominance? They're paying their players three times what the rest of the league is paying theirs.
"Wrexham are the wealthiest non-league club as far as I'm aware," said Jordan Gardner, former managing partner and chairman for Danish club FC Helsingør and an advisor with TFG. "However, you do have a few other historic clubs -- Notts County, for example -- that are spending above the average down in the National League.
"There's no doubt Wrexham's spending has been a significant contributor to their success, and you could argue they have stronger financial backing than some clubs one and two tiers above them. However, I'm a firm believer that while spending is tied to success in football, it's not as highly correlated as people think. You need to spend wisely and build proper infrastructure, which Wrexham have done an excellent job of. Their entire infrastructure -- from coaches to data science to facilities -- put them well above all the other National League clubs."
They've spent a lot of money on players. They've spent a lot of money on infrastructure, management, coaching and, according to Gardner, they've spent all of it on the right stuff.
"The owners purchased the freehold of the Racecourse Ground, the club's home venue," he said. "This would allow a stadium expansion and the opportunity to host Wales international fixtures, as well as other sporting events in North Wales. They brought in advisors Les Reed [former director of football and vice chairman at Southampton], Shaun Harvey [former CEO of Leeds United and the English Football League] and Peter Moore [former CEO, Liverpool FC]. They hired an experienced manager, Phil Parkinson, who had previously been at larger clubs such as Bolton, Charlton and Sunderland.
"Finally, they hired an experienced CEO, Fleur Robinson, who had spent 26 years as commercial director of Burton Albion and previously sat on the board of the Football Association's Women's National League. The owners have also invested in the Wrexham A.F.C. Women's squad, applying for a Tier 1 license so the team would move up to a semi-professional level."
What about next season?
Let's just assume Wrexham get promoted, which can happen very soon: if Notts County draw to third-place Woking on Saturday, Wrexham are champions if they win on Saturday at Barnet and on Tuesday against Yeovil Town. What are realistic expectations for their first campaign in the Football League?
Since 2009-10, only four teams (or 17%) were immediately promoted to League One after their first season in League Two: Stevenage in 10-11, Crawley Town in 11-12, Bristol Rovers in 15-16 and Tranmere Rovers in 18-19. While immediate promotion isn't likely, it's more realistic than relegation. Over this same stretch of time, not a single National League team has been relegated after their first season in League Two.
However, on the whole, according to TFG analysis, strong defensive sides have fared better in their first League Two seasons. While Wrexham aren't a bad defensive team, they win games at the other end. (Yes, even their tactics are made for TV.) They've scored 109 goals in 42 matches -- more than anyone else in the National League -- but their 41 goals conceded is also tied for third fewest in the competition.
Wrexham, obviously, are not your typical League Two newbie. They're co-owned by a superhero (antihero?) and Rob McElhenney, one of the leads and creators of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." They have their own TV show. The team has been covered by just about every mainstream non-sports publication in the United States. We're broadcasting some of their games on ESPN+. They're quickly becoming one of the most popular European soccer teams in America. I am writing, and you are reading, a piece about the 1,265th-best soccer team in the world. This is a singular experience.
"I believe what Ryan and Rob have done at Wrexham is unique -- and almost certainly impossible to replicate," Gardner said. "Reynolds in particular is a very media savvy guy, who has access to a host of public relations and marketing infrastructure that no one else has. There is simply no one else that can do what they are doing, certainly not in an authentic way that is compelling both as a media product and a football club. Plenty of celebrities currently own football clubs, but none have come close to having the impact of the folks at Wrexham."
And with all of that comes their spending power. According to historical results and spending analysis from TFG, to give yourself a 25% chance of being promoted to League One, you have needed to spend about £3.7 million on player salaries. If Wrexham are not already there, I'd expect them to reach it after this summer.
"As Wrexham moves up the English football pyramid, some of their inherent advantages will dissipate," Gardner said. "In League Two, they presumably will be one of the wealthier clubs, but any league higher and there's a significant jump in the scale of investment needed to be competitive."
So ... how far can they go?
Since 2010, there have been a number of sides who rapidly shot up through the divisions of Europe's major soccer-playing nations. There's RB Leipzig, who took eight years to go from Germany's various regional leagues to second place in their first season in the Bundesliga. In France, Strasbourg went from the fourth tier to Ligue 11 from 2012-13 to 2017-18. Bournemouth went from League Two to the Premier League from 2009-10 to 2015-16. Darmstadt made it from Germany's fourth tier to the Bundesliga from 2010-11 to 2015-16, while Luton Town rose from the National League to the Championship from 2013-14 to 2019-20.
It's tempting to look at Leipzig similarly to Wrexham. The former is essentially a marketing arm for an energy drink, while Wrexham is something of a marketing arm for Reynolds and McElhenney and the show about the team. But that's not quite right. Red Bull has way more money than those two will ever have, and also built out a global scouting infrastructure while reinventing the way the sport was being played in the process.
Interestingly, all of those other clubs made their rises after some kind of financial-related decline initially forced them down the table. They were all historically bigger clubs than the tiers into which they dropped down. Wrexham, meanwhile, have never been above the third tier of English soccer, and they haven't been inside the Football League structure since 2008. They too suffered from financial problems that ultimately drove them down into the fifth tier, but the landscape of the sport has drastically changed in the 15 years they've been away. Multiple sovereign wealth funds own teams now.
Given their resources, Wrexham eventually gaining promotion to League One seems entirely realistic. But from there? It's really hard to expect much more. The financial power of the opposition increases and the low-hanging fruit -- hiring experienced executives, making money from your stadium -- no longer really gives you a leg up. To earn a 25% chance at being promoted from League One, per TFG, wage spend needs to be £9 million. Again: it doesn't seem like much, but it's three times what they're spending this season.
"There's no doubt the celebrity ownership and interest in the project will attract players and staff, but money drives everything in this sport and it's unlikely a player would take significantly lower wages just to be at Wrexham," Gardner said. "I would assume that at some point the owners will need to bring on new, wealthier backers to fund the project if they want to compete at the higher levels of English football."
The squeeze doesn't really start to happen until you reach the Championship, where you're competing with all these clubs who are spending as much as they can -- frequently more on wages than they're bringing in from revenue -- to get a taste of the Premier League's billion-dollar TV deal. To achieve that same 25% chance of promotion to the Premier League, the wage bill would need to rise up to £39 million. And were they to ever reach the Premier League, there's then the whole issue with staying there. Per TFG, £81 million in salary spending gets you only a 50% chance of avoiding relegation.
"It's a great story, but entirely unrealistic for Wrexham to ever be talked about as a Premier League club," Gardner said. "The amount of time, energy and money needed to make the jump up four divisions is enormous. Even more modest goals such as going up to League One or maybe even the Championship will be very challenging and take significant time and money. They'll need an influx of tens of millions of pounds in capital to be competitive for promotions in league football, and even then there's no guarantee of success. With how competitive league football is, it could be years before the club gets promoted even once or twice."
Put another way, the payoff might not come until "Welcome to Wrexham" Season 5. Will you still be watching?