When it comes to high school, it is a vicious cycle of hard and good times. It is that strange space in life where you are learning who you are, figuring out who you do not want to be, and trying to survive everyone else’s opinions while doing it. Truthfully, high school is a time in my life I would never want to return to—but it is a place I find myself revisiting whenever I watch vertical dramas like My Hearts Offside.
At the center of the story is Delaney De Vere, the daughter of the mayor, who is starting at Pine Ridge High School under the name Delaney Davis. She wants the chance to be known as herself rather than as her mother’s daughter, especially because the students already have strong feelings about the mayor. Delaney’s mother wants to shut down the school’s soccer field, and at Pine Ridge, soccer is not just an extracurricular activity. It is everything.
Delaney has spent most of her life homeschooled, so beginning at a new school is exciting for her. She wants friends, she wants a community, and she wants the normal teenage experiences she has missed out on. Of course, that dream immediately comes with complications. Pine Ridge does not have a girls’ soccer team, and when Delaney fights for a place on the boys’ team, she is met with resistance from nearly everyone.
The boys do not want her there, but their captain, Colton, is especially determined to make her life difficult.
Colton is the kind of high-school captain who thinks the entire world should follow his rules. He has a serious case of delusions of grandeur, and his arrogance shines through in almost every interaction. He wants control, he expects people to listen, and he does not always seem to care who gets hurt as long as things go his way. Unfortunately, the rest of the team seems more than happy to follow his lead. If Colton dislikes someone, they dislike that person too. If he decides someone does not belong, the team follows along without question.
Everyone, that is, except Delaney.
That does not mean Delaney does not want to be accepted. After being homeschooled for most of her life, she understandably wants connection. She wants to find her place, make friends, and be part of something bigger than herself. But she also has a stubborn determination that makes her easy to root for. Delaney refuses to let Colton—or anyone else—decide what she can and cannot do.
Her relationship with soccer carries an especially emotional weight. Delaney lost her father to heart issues after he collapsed during a soccer game, and because of that tragedy, her mother is terrified of letting her play. From her mother’s perspective, soccer is connected to one of the worst moments of her life. But for Delaney, soccer is the thing that makes her feel alive. It is the dream she cannot let go of, even when pursuing it means pushing back against the people she loves.
Kyra Wisely brings a genuine softness and innocence to Delaney, and that quality works well for a character entering a completely new social world. You can understand why Delaney feels overwhelmed, hopeful, and eager to be seen. Wisely is talented, and she has a natural ability to make a character’s sincerity feel believable rather than overly sweet.
That said, I found myself wishing the role allowed Wisely to show more range. There is a familiarity to this character that may stand out for viewers who have watched several of her vertical dramas. She often plays variations of the innocent, determined young woman trying to hold her own in an intimidating environment. She does that archetype well, but My Hearts Offside does not always give her the opportunity to surprise us.
The issue is not that Wisely lacks ability. It is that the roles she takes on—or perhaps the roles she is being offered—often keep her in the same emotional lane. I want more for her because she has the presence to play a messier, sharper, more unexpected character. Her ability to portray innocence is a strength, but it should not be the only thing audiences get to see from her. It would be exciting to see casting directors give her material that challenges the image they seem to have built around her.
Josh Welles faces a similar pattern as Colton. He has the look and energy for the popular, cocky high-school guy who seems impossible at first but is inevitably positioned as the boy viewers are supposed to watch. He is convincing in that space, and there is something effective about the way he plays Colton’s early arrogance. You immediately understand why Delaney would be frustrated with him—and why the show sees potential in putting these two characters in each other’s orbit.
Still, like Wisely, Welles can feel a little boxed in by the types of roles he is given. There is a tendency to place him in familiar teen-romance territory – the difficult guy, the protective guy, the guy who needs the right girl to make him soften. It is a formula that works for a reason, especially in vertical drama, but it also risks making his characters blur together. Welles has appeared in roles outside of that high-school romantic archetype, though those parts have not always felt as natural or successful for him. Here, at least, he knows exactly how to inhabit the heightened, frustratingly confident teen-boy energy the story requires.
What I struggled with most in My Hearts Offside is the pacing. as well as the lack of realism in the world it creates. Vertical dramas do not need to be perfectly realistic—honestly, a little heightened chaos can be part of the fun—but the story still has to give viewers something emotionally believable to hold onto. Here, it often feels like the students have far more power over the school, the soccer team, and even the adults around them than they realistically should. That makes it difficult to fully invest in the stakes.
The issue is not that the show is dramatic. I am always here for drama! But the drama needs grounding. Even when a plot is exaggerated, viewers should be able to recognize the feelings underneath it: wanting to belong, fighting for a dream, grieving someone you love, and falling for someone you probably should not. My Hearts Offside has those ingredients, especially through Delaney’s love of soccer and her desire to build a life outside of her mother’s fears. Unfortunately, the storytelling does not always give those emotional moments enough room to land.
At times, the series feels scattered, bouncing between conflicts and heightened moments without fully connecting them. Then, just when it seems like the story has finally found its emotional center, it can feel as though it has already spent too long wandering to get there. That makes the pacing particularly frustrating because there really is potential in this premise.
A mayor’s daughter hiding her identity. A school ready to turn against her. A beloved soccer field on the line. A girl determined to play on a team that does not want her there. On paper, this is exactly the kind of deliciously messy setup that should be impossible not to binge.
Instead, the pacing often makes the story feel harder to follow than it needs to be. The plot would have benefited from a clearer understanding of what mattered most and a stronger through line connecting Delaney’s family grief, her fight to play soccer, the field controversy, and her place on the team. The show has plenty of moving parts, but not all of them feel as though they are moving in the same direction.
The chemistry is another place where I found myself wanting more. And to be clear, it does not feel like Kyra Wisely and Josh Welles are not trying. Both actors understand the heightened emotions that make a vertical romance work, and there are moments where you can see the show reaching for that push-and-pull, enemies-to-something-more energy. But the spark never fully clicks into place. Their dynamic has the idea of tension, but it does not always develop into the kind of chemistry that makes you want to scream at the screen, replay scenes, or immediately hit “next episode.”
Final Thoughts
I truly wanted to love My Hearts Offside. The premise has so much promise, and there are pieces of a compelling teen sports romance throughout: a determined heroine, family trauma, school politics, identity secrets, and a soccer team full of boys who desperately need to learn a lesson or two.
But wanting a drama to work and feeling that it works are two very different things. By the end, I was less swept up in Delaney’s journey than I was wishing the story had trusted its strongest ideas enough to build around them. With tighter pacing, stronger emotional grounding, a more coherent script, and a romantic connection that truly sparks, this could have been such a fun watch.
Instead, it lands in that frustrating middle ground: not awful, not unwatchable, and not without potential—but ultimately more meh than memorable.
