The two best episodes in the entire series were the Xmas episode and "Beard After Hours", in my opinion. Hilarious to me that they were "tacked on, extra" episodes.
It's interesting reading reviews of episodes of this show. There seems to be a strong contingent of critics who detest any episodes or storylines that aren't directly related to the soccer club itself. Whereas I don't give a flying #### about the soccer.
I find it's a common refrain from people when watching lots and lots of TV shows nowadays; lots of people I know hated "filler" episodes of
Game of Thrones and
The Mandalorian, for example.
I find it eminently funny. To me the LEAST interesting parts of
Ted Lasso are the actual soccer games, and it's the "filler" episodes and storylines that are the good bits. This season the best episode was far and away the night off in Amsterdam.