Up the Foxes

May 2016

Appreciating Leicester City and the Greatest Sports Story Ever Told

Imagine the chaos that would ensue if the miserable Cleveland Browns (3-13 last year) won the 2017 Super Bowl. Or if the utterly hapless Philadelphia 76ers, who finished in the gutters of the NBA for a second year running, miraculously notched the league’s best record next year. It would be sheer pandemonium, for such things simply do not happen.

That’s not to say that upsets are uncommon in sports—far from it. And every year seems to have its Cinderella story—where a team pegged to flop somehow outperforms even its wildest dreams. Both of these are part of the magic that makes sports worth watching, the enchantment that keeps audiences glued to their televisions and rooted to their seats week after week. After all, who doesn’t love a good fairy tale?

And as far as fairy tales go, few in the past century have been as remarkable as Leicester City’s legendary escape from relegation in 2015. With eight matches to go, the Foxes sat at the bottom of the Premier League, having gone three months without a win. They had no hope, no quality, no right to turn things around. But somehow they did, winning six of those last eight games to avoid relegation and complete the greatest escape in Premier League history. It was a Cinderella story for the ages.

The thing is, Cinderella stories aren’t supposed to have sequels. This one somehow did.

I. The Protagonists

The world of professional football is a ruthless and unforgiving one, where money is king and the sheer level of inequality is baffling. It’s a realm where the richest team in the world has access to over 10 times the resources of competitors in its own league; furthermore, it’s one devoid of salary caps or drafts, those parity mechanisms integral to American sports. In this cruel, capitalistic world, one can only fly so high before being crippled by the burden of reality.

And the reality is, Leicester City (team cost: £54.4M) are but swallows amongst the giants of the wealthy Premier League (whose richest club tops out at nearly £400M). For teams like Leicester, simply avoiding relegation is an accomplishment. A midtable finish is a dream come true. Top-6, near-unthinkable.

Winning the title? Get the hell out of town.

For there are no playoffs in league football, no avenues or opportunities for wild-card magic; the team with the most points at the season’s end wins the title. It’s a simple set of rules, one which means head-to-head results matter far less than consistent, sustained quality. For thirty-eight matchweeks, aspiring champions must maintain an unwavering level of quality—regardless of player fatigue, injuries, or extraneous circumstance. In the Premier League, the depth of your squad is just as crucial as its level of starpower.

So while Leicester—hell, even a third-division squad—might beat Chelsea or United on a lucky day, poor clubs lack the resources to build up significant squad quality and depth. And without depth, a team faces a monumental task in maintaining performance week in and week out. That’s why the giants win titles, while the swallows struggle to stay afloat.

Entering the year, Leicester’s squad was a haphazard mishmash of spare parts and nobodies, unmistakably that of a bottom-feeder. Attacking midfielder Riyad Mahrez had been acquired cheaply two years before from the anonymous French second division. N’Golo Kante was an uncelebrated signing, as was right back Christian Fuchs, whose European career seemed ready to end before he decided to give England one last go.

And no one personified the ramshackle nature of Leicester’s squad like its starting striker. Jamie Vardy, twenty-eight years of age, was an unabashed chav who only four years before was working in a factory and playing amateur football for the Stocksbridge Park Steels.

Make no mistake—Leicester was a team destined for a relegation scrap. Manager Claudio Ranieri said as much when he declared his goal for the year: forty points, enough for safety in the Premier League.

Then the season began.

II. The Script

And as it unfolded, the impossible happened. The team everyone pegged as relegation fodder started winning matches, grabbing the pen and scribbling a spellbinding script before our very eyes. The slender Mahrez ran circles around the opposition, arms and legs shimmying here and there in a dazzling Algerian blur. Kante became an impassable obstacle in the heart of the midfield, Danny Drinkwater never stopped running, and Fuchs anchored a taut defense that somehow grew stronger as the season went on.

And Vardy? What about Jamie Vardy, twenty-eight years of age, formerly of the Stocksbridge Park Steeds?

Well, his star burned brighter than them all. Seemingly overnight, he turned from a hardworking but limited striker into a poor man’s Luis Suarez. Vardy slammed goal after goal home in the opening half of the season, smashing the Premier League record for most consecutive games with a goal and dragging Leicester to victory week in and week out. Vardy couldn’t stop scoring, and Leicester City couldn’t stop winning. They opened the season on fire, winning 8 of their first 13 matches and storming into the top 4.

Despite Leicester's ferocious start to the season, no one took them seriously. Overlooked and underestimated they were, but the Foxes kept winning.

Weeks passed, months sped by, and still Leicester City remained atop the table. Vardy came back to Earth, injuries struck, spells of bad form hit...but still the Foxes carried on. Pundits everywhere began to laud their accomplishments, but no one doubted an imminent downfall. With the level of quality present in the Premier League, one of the big teams would undoubtedly find form and snatch the reins from Leicester.

First it was Arsenal's turn. But despite winning both head-to-head matches against the Foxes, the Gunners (team cost: £251M) stumbled and fell behind as the year turned. The pundits next pegged recent champions Manchester City (£419M); but the Citizens seemed unwilling to seize the opportunity, languidly dropping points like they were hot potatoes. Finally Tottenham (£161M), the league’s youngest team, arose as the likely spoilers.

February, March, then April, came and went. Tottenham caught fire, fueled by English superstar Harry Kane. But despite Spurs’ best efforts, the Foxes couldn’t be shaken—and people started to wonder. Could this team, could this scrap heap of a squad be the real deal? Could the group that needed a miracle to stay in the Premiership last year actually have a shot to win it all?

As with the America and a certain redheaded politician, by the time people started taking Leicester’s challenge for real, it was too late. On Monday afternoon, their questions were answered for good, as the unlikeliest story in the Premier League’s history came to a stunning end.

As title victories go, it was a rather uneventful one. There were no late goals, no stunning equalizers, no storming of the ground by the fans. Indeed, Leicester, needing just two points to seal the deal, flubbed its chance to win a crown at home, drawing against Manchester United and leaving open the whisper of a chance of a Tottenham shocker. Tottenham however, failed to meet the challenge, crashing out in humiliating fashion with a draw against Chelsea, cementing what for weeks had been inevitable—Leicester City’s title.

III. The Aftermath

There are too many remarkable parts of Leicester City’s story, so much to appreciate about their accomplishments. But this I find particularly fascinating: the fact that, thirty-five weeks into the season, Leicester’s victory was almost an inevitable conclusion. Closing out a title challenge effectively is an incredibly difficult feat—just ask Steven Gerrard about 2014. And no one would have been surprised should Leicester have stumbled near the finish line, as so many first-time challengers do.

But as the season wore on, Leicester City never let up the staccato rhythm of its play. As doubters started to believe and believers started to celebrate, Leicester closed out the season with a cool professionalism reminiscent of such consistent winners as Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United.

The team that last year needed epic heroism to stave off relegation somehow won this year’s title with two matches to spare.

Taking into account the absurd inequality inherent in modern-day football, the cavernous void that looms between the giants and the also-rans, I think it’s reasonable to argue that Leicester City’s 2015-2016 is perhaps the greatest achievement in the history of the sport.

Civil order would probably break down in America if the Cleveland Browns won the Super Bowl or if the 76ers overcame Steph Curry and LeBron James to steal the NBA’s best record. We would never hear the end of it. As a football story, Leicester’s will inevitably underappreciated in the States, but there is serious evidence to show that this feat is magnitudes greater than Cleveland’s or Philadelphia’s would be. As a sports fan, I think this deserves honest consideration as one of the greatest sports stories ever.

Cinderella stories aren’t supposed to have sequels…but this one somehow did.