And then there is Zava. With all due respect to Osinski's artful portrayal of the haughty superstar, Zava is far and away the most likely character to be remembered as "Ted Lasso's" Euron Greyjoy. He's a pointless guy who scores some goals, looks like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, spouts pseudophilosophical nonsense, talks about avocados sometimes, and unceremoniously goes away with very little payoff to anything at all.
In a show where even minor characters often come off as fully thought-out, consistent characters, Zava remains a crass caricature. He does serve certain functions: He inadvertently inspires Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) to work with Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) to reach his full potential. He also allows Rebecca to flex her team-owner muscles by being able to recruit him in the first place. You could even argue that AFC Richmond clearly needed some new star player this season since they're back in the Premier League, and it might as well be Zava. However, most of this rings hollow, comes at a steep cost, and could easily have been achieved through other means that don't take away so much from other characters.
The thing is, Zava's arrival immediately turns every non-Jamie member of the squad into mindless yes-men, so way more prominent and well-rounded characters like Isaac McAdoo (Kola Bokinni) are mere footnotes whenever he's around. What's more, Zava's refusal to follow tactical advice reduces Ted and his coaching team into powerless doofuses. All in all, he's constantly undermining a good half of the show's main characters. That's a lot of characters to throw under the "Let's make Jamie the team's goal-scoring heart" bus, especially since Jamie could've found his groove in any number of other ways that wouldn't have left so many other characters hanging.
