SHREWSBURY – Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney appear to have FA Cup fever — just like their soccer club Wrexham.
The Hollywood stars were watching from their homes in the United States as Wrexham won 1-0 at local rival Shrewsbury, a team from one division higher in English soccer's pyramid, in the third round of the famous competition on Sunday.
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The Welsh club will find out on Monday its opponent in the fourth round — or the last 32 — and there's a good chance it will be a team from the Premier League.
That would excite Reynolds and McElhenney, who bought Wrexham for $2.5 million in 2021 and made the club the subject of popular fly-on-the-wall TV documentary “Welcome to Wrexham.”
They have become keen soccer fans as a result, with “Deadpool” star Reynolds posting a picture of himself on X, formerly Twitter, sitting next to fellow actor Hugh Jackman while watching the Shrewsbury-Wrexham match.
The FA Cup's official account on X posted a video of Wrexham's goal against Shrewsbury, which was scored by defender Tom O'Connor in the 72nd minute, and said the team's fans enjoyed it. McElhenney responded to it by posting: “You should’ve seen my living room.”
Wrexham has a strong tradition in the FA Cup, memorably defeating then-English champion Arsenal 2-1 in the third round in 1992 for one of the competition's biggest-ever shocks. Wrexham reached the quarterfinals in 1997, beating top-flight West Ham along the way.
The buzz around Wrexham and its celebrity owners reached new levels during a cup run around this time last year when the team beat one second-tier Championship team in Coventry and then took another, Premier League-bound Sheffield United, to a replay.
This season, Wrexham has already beaten Mansfield, Yeovil and now Shrewsbury to reach the fourth round.
The team is also doing well in league play. It is in third place in the fourth-tier League Two in a bid to secure back-to-back promotions.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer