In 2013, Leicester’s Anthony Knockaert kissed goodbye to a shot at the Premier League promotion when he missed a decisive penalty kick in the dying moments as Watford launched a counterattack to finish off the Foxes, and their Premier League hopes. Youtube videos showcasing the best comebacks have portrayed that Leicester city were at the receiving end on the night. However, most football fans fail to realize that it was rather the inception of the greatest sporting story. Having worked on their weaknesses, the determined Blue foxes, managed by Nigel Pearson, outright won the second tier Football League championship the next year to secure a Premier League spot - one of the club’s most glorious days in an otherwise ordinary history.
However, the Premier League has always been a different competition, and Leicester learnt it the hard way. While they beat a rejuvenated Manchester United 5-3 in one of the first few games, they lost their way prior to Christmas to find themselves at the bottom of the relegation zone in April. Dropping to the second tier for the umpteenth time was on the cards. But Nigel Pearson managed to execute one of the greatest rescue missions by winning seven out of the last nine games to finish the season in the 14th position - a comfortable 4 spots above the relegation zone. Leicester ensured that they were to be a part of the Premier League 2015/16.
The board however decided to hire Claudio Ranieri in place of Nigel Pearson. It was the same Ranieri who was sacked by Chelsea about 12 years ago as he had failed to win silverware. With only a couple of major additions over the summer of 2015, Ranieri’s formula was simple but effective - Defend deep to eliminate the risk of getting caught in possession and without a moment’s notice, counter-attack with the likes of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. It was far from the eye-pleasing tiki-taka, but it worked wonders for a team that had only aspired to stay in the Premier League for the next season.
Ranieri’s team consistently got the desired results, but it was not until comprehensively crushing Pellegrini’s Manchester City at the Etihad in February 2016, that the world thought of the unthinkable - Leicester, who had barely managed to squeeze through to avoid relegation in the last season, had hopes of clinching the Premier League 2015/16 - odds of which at the beginning of the season were less than Kim Kardashian winning the US presidential polls.
Consequently, Ranieiri managed to engineer one of the greatest success stories in the history of the planet when Leicester, a team from the Tier 2 championship, were crowned as the champions of arguably the World’s most popular sporting league within 2 years. What makes it extraordinary is the fact that Leicester sustained their excellence over the course of a year in a 38-game season while competing in a monopolized world against the big guns that make money talk. Leicester’s incredible rise has been an emotional campaign that moves from heartbreak to optimism, to hope to disbelief and finally unprecedented ecstasy.