March 04, 2026
Orlando Ramirez/Imagn Images
Rob Mac, who co-owns Welsh soccer team Wrexham AFC with actor Ryan Reynolds, will bring the club back to the Philly area for a preseason match against Sunderland on Aug. 2.
Welsh soccer club Wrexham AFC, the team owned by Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds, will be back at Subaru Park in Chester for a preseason match against the Premier League's Sunderland AFC on Aug. 2.
The match is part of a summer tour that includes stops in Tampa, Florida and New York City. Wrexham AFC last visited Subaru Park three years ago for a friendly against the Philadelphia Union's second team.
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Reynolds and Rob Mac, the co-creator and star of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," purchased Wrexham AFC in 2021 in a bid to change the fortunes of the third oldest professional team in the world. The team was in the fifth tier of English football, and its rise to the Championship division — the second tier — has been chronicled in the Emmy-award winning FXX docuseries "Welcome to Wrexham," now in its fifth season.
Rob Mac, who has been a clubhouse motivator during the team's turnaround, told The Athletic in February that he feels as if his and Reynolds' work has just begun. The South Philly native said he identifies with Wrexham and the people who support the club.
"From the very beginning, it was, and always will be, about working-class people," Mac said. "The community of Wrexham. That is what always drew me in. I just kept looking at the faces of the people, and they looked like me. Like people I grew up with. They looked like my uncles and my aunts and my cousins. My friends, all the people I knew."
Wrexham is now in sixth place in the Championship league and vying to be one of four teams that gets promoted to the Premier League. Sunderland, from England, moved up to the Premier League this season for the first time since the 2016-2017 season. The club was the subject of the Netflix series "Sunderland Til I Die."
Wrexham AFC members and season ticket holders will get the first shot at tickets for the team's U.S. tour. A presale opens March 10 before a general sale begins March 12. Wrexham also faces Leeds United in Tampa on July 25 and Liverpool in The Bronx on July 29.
