Leicester’s City premiership victory is perhaps one of the most surreal experiences in football of late.
The consistent and focused team efforts in these Premiership has confirmed the extent to which unity of purpose and expression of skill can produce good results when blended with dedication. Exactly how a football team previously not even worth mentioning in the same breath as other teams, could defy all odds and win the premiership is a wonder.
Leicester City had already done enough to win before their last match, but could not help batter Sunderland 3-1 in their final showing to confirm their new position as top of the league winners.
“I keep telling the same joke over and over again,” Walsh said. “No matter who we’re playing we play three in midfield, we play [Danny] Drinkwater in the middle as a holding player and we play Kanté either side.”
Manger Ranieri expects his team to have a far greater workload compared with this season because of their involvement in Europe. “I hope we can find good players and make some replacements because next season there will be three cups and the Premier League and it will be important to be able to make good changes and give some rest to the players,” Leicester’s manager said.
The draw for the Champions League group stage takes place ion 3 months time, on 25 August – almost eight years to the day since Leicester beat Tranmere Rovers 3-1 at home in League One – and Ranieri can already relishes the opportunity for his side to defy the odds once more and prove themselves mighty beyond the expectations of all.
“I believe when they make the draw for the Champions League a lot of teams will want to play against us because we are in [this competition] for the first time and they think we are underdogs,” Ranieri said. “We are underdogs but we are dangerous.” The season 2008-2009, was the first for the Foxes outside the top two levels of football, one that quickly became the fastest rise to the pinnacle of the English football premiere league system, apart from that of Ipswich Town F.C in 1962. In 2010, Leicester were bottom of the league with only one win out of the first 9 league games, and the manager at the time. Paulo Sousa, was sacked, whilst former England manager, Sven Goran Eriksson replaced him. Erikson performed no wonders for Leicester, who less than half of their 13 games that season, leading to Erikson’s voluntary resignation, and who was duly substituted by Nigel Pearson.
Pearson produced better results, by taking the Foxes to a 6th place finish in the 2013-2013 season, and though they lost the championships play off to Watford, they were promoted to the premier league after a 10 year absence, later becoming champions of the the football league championships of 2013 -2014. Victories over Everton last December(3-2), Sunderland in April(2-0), and Tottenham(3-0) secured their qualification for the championship league. Their eventual victory on May 2 after Tottenham hotspur failed to secure a win against Chelsea, completed the ferry tale victory for the team, which they even topped up by beating Everton 3-1 after.