Leicester City 2015-16: The Tale of an Unlikely Champion
The King Re-Appears
King Richard III died in combat in 1485, slayed at the Battle of Bosworth Field by Henry Tudor’s rebellion. The first King of England to die in battle since Harold II in 1066 and the last to fall in such a way since. For centuries his bones lay unmarked below the Leicestershire dirt, considered lost for all time, but in 2012 an excavation unearthed those bones resting beneath a Leicester council carpark.
On 26 March 2015, King Richard III was reinterred to his permanent resting place beneath Leicester Cathedral in a public ceremony befitting of a rediscovered monarch.
Avoiding Relegation
A five minute drive down the road from the Cathedral via Western Boulevard takes you to King Power Stadium, home of Leicester City Football Club. The name is of no connection to the rediscovered king, it stems from major sponsors King Power, the Thai travel retailers that tag themselves the ‘King of Duty Free’. King Power Group’s chairman is Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who is also the chairman and owner of Leicester City. The name ‘Srivaddhanaprabha’ means ‘light of progressive glory’ and was bestowed upon he and his family in 2013 by the King of Thailand. He became the majority owner of the club in 2010 (after a three year King Power kit sponsorship) and assumed the chair in 2011.
Leicester City’s return to the Premier League began positively as £8m signing Leonardo Ulloa scored on debut and Chris Wood bagged a late equaliser for a 2-2 draw with Everton. After losing 2-0 at Chelsea, Ulloa then scored again in a 1-1 stalemate against Arsenal and would also get the winner at Stoke the following game – LCFC’s first top flight victory since May 2004. But it was the next match that really drew the headlines, down 3-1 to Manchester United, the pace of Jamie Vardy and the guile of new signing Esteban Cambiasso helped orchestrate a famous comeback for a 5-3 win. Ulloa scored twice. Vardy, Cambiasso and David Nugent all found the net as well.
However it would be over three months before the Foxes managed another win. Close victories over the New Year period against Hull and Aston Villa then gave way to another run of defeats and, sitting dead last, their chances of survival appeared hopeless.
Richard III was entombed during an international break. The following day England won 4-0 against Lithuania at Wembley Stadium. Leicester City had just lost 4-3 to Tottenham Hotspur the week before and lingered seven points from safety. They did not have a win in their previous eight games and only four in 29 all season.
A week later Andy King scored an 86th minute winner as the Foxes defeated West Ham 2-1. Stunningly, Leicester City would win seven of their final nine matches to finish in 14th place.
The Promotions
Back in the late 1990s Leicester City was a decent Premier League club. They won a couple of League Cups and twice competed in Europe as the likes of Emile Heskey, Neil Lennon and Robbie Savage ran around with the fox on their chests. That was until down they went in 2001-02, bouncing straight back with a second place finish in the Championship only to be relegated again the following season. It got messy enough that in 2008-09 they found themselves competing in League One – the first time Leicester City had been outside the top two divisions in its entire history.
It was down in League One that Nigel Pearson took over as manager and he would eventually become the first Leicester manager to last an entire season in five years. Led by the goals of Matty Fryatt (now at Notts Forest), the wing play of Lloyd Dyer (finishing a short term spell at Burnley) and the midfield control of Andy King (still with the club), the Foxes cruised to the League One title. A year later they found themselves in the Championship playoffs, although they lost in the semis to Cardiff on penalties. Pearson then left to take up the job at Hull City and it was soon after that that the King Power Group assumed their takeover.
They fluffed around the following term and Paulo Sousa was fired. Incredibly in came former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson to replace him. After steadying the team into midtable, the Foxes were big favourites to make a playoff push after a busy summer that saw them splashing cash all over on the likes of Kaspar Schmeichel, Wes Morgan, Danny Drinkwater and David Nugent… except that didn’t happen. Eriksson was sacked after a 3-0 loss at home to Millwall and was replaced by a returning Nigel Pearson. So it goes, Pearson took them back into the playoffs the following season, aided by a few more handy additions, such as Ritchie De Laet and Matty James coming in from Manchester United (plus loans from Man Utd for Michael Keane and, briefly, Jesse Lingard), a loan deal for a young Spurs lad named Harry Kane, a January move for a New Zealand striker named Chris Wood and then also the signing from Fleetwood Town of this bloke called Jamie Vardy, who had been scoring goals all over the place to earn that team their first ever promotion into the Football League.
But they lost to Watford. Dave Nugent scored an 82nd minute winner in the home leg but a 97th minute goal for Troy Deeney knocked them out, again in the semis. What’s worse is that it came from a counter attack from a missed Anthony Knockaert penalty at the other end that would have won the tie. About as dramatic as football gets. (To be fair, it was a huuuuge dive).
The next campaign there would be no such heartache. Goals from Drinkwater and Vardy got them off to a great start with a 2-1 win at Middlesbrough and they’d go on to win 12 of their first 16 games, including a vindicating 3-0 win against Watford at Vicarage Road - Wood, Knockaert and Dyer all scoring. A brief turn in form in November/December saw them lose three of five but then the Foxes would absolutely blast their way to the title, losing just once in their final 26 matches – a 4-1 home defeat to Brighton in which Leonardo Ulloa scored twice. Within a few months Ulloa would be Leicester City’s record signing. A week previous, Leicester had won 2-1 against Sheffield Wednesday, with the first goal coming from summer signing Riyad Mahrez, a tricky French/Algerian winger signed from Ligue Two side Le Havre for a small fee. Coupled with QPR and Bolton losses, that result guaranteed automatic promotion and a return to the Premier League after a decade’s absence. A lone Lloyd Dyer goal in a 1-0 win over Bolton secured the Championship title with two games to spare.
Ranieri
Nigel Pearson had guided Leicester into the top flight and he kept them up despite the odds. However the man had his drawbacks. Laying into a journalist, calling him an ostrich was one. After he grabbed Crystal Palace's James McArthur by the throat during a game there were strong rumours that he would be sacked by the club. That didn’t happen (or it did and he was reinstated, depending on what you read). What finally ended his tenure with the club were “fundamental differences in perspective” that led to an irreparable relationship between Pearson and the ownership. It is widely believed that the final straw stemmed from Pearson’s son’s role in a so-called racist sex tape during the club’s tour of Srivaddhabaprabha’s native Thailand after their fabulous Premier League survival. Pearson Jnr and two other trainees had their contracts torn up after the incident.
Pearson had been a divisive personality but his on-field success was undeniable. Given that the club was also losing 2014-15 Club Player of the Season Esteban Cambiasso, a man instrumental in their late season surge, finding a suitable replacement manager was essential.
The man they chose was 64 year old Claudio Ranieri. Since being sacked by Chelsea in 2004, Ranieri had held seven managerial jobs and the longest he’d lasted in any of them was two years at Monaco. Most recent was a disastrous run in charge of the Greek national team where he was fired after his fourth game in charge as his side lost 1-0 at home to the Faroe Islands. Fair to say that his appointment was met with confusion and indifference. Ranieri is a friendly, classy, likeable man. In many ways to opposite to Pearson’s hard edge. The Italian had never won a major domestic league but that was not his task here, instead he came out talking about 40 points as the target. Avoid relegation, 40 points. Six months later he was still saying the same thing.
The Early Sprint
As has been the case throughout their rise, Leicester City had money to spend and they did not rest on their laurels. What they did rest on was a wonderful scouting set up that has continually unearthed quality and talent without the club having to break the bank. Having broken their record transfer fee on Andrej Kramaric in January (signed from HNK Rijeka for £9m) only to have him score just three goals in 15 games, he was loaned out to 1899 Hoffenheim in the early stages of the 2015-16 season. Kramaric could still prove a fine player, he scored 55 goals in 64 games for Rijeka, but his had been a very atypical move for the Foxes, who had assembled a squad largely full of unwanted, underrated and even a few unknown players. This time around, with a second Premier League campaign approaching, they were able to spend more freely. In came Shinji Okazaki (£7m), Gokhan Inler (£3m) and Robert Huth (£3m). Huth had been a part of the team’s late resurgence the past campaign when he joined on loan from Stoke. Seemingly unwanted by the Potters as they reshaped their squad around the likes of Bojan Krkic and Xherdan Shaqiri, Huth would prove a particularly astute move. As would the free transfer for Christian Fuchs. Although arguably the most important move they made was in replacing Cambiasso with N’Golo Kante for £5.6m, even if having been plucked from obscurity at Caen in France, few would have predicted that. Somehow getting a combined £7m back in fees for selling strikers David Nugent and Chris Wood to Championship clubs sure helped as well.
When Ranieri took over, he and the board took the unusual move of retaining Pearson’s entire backroom staff. The only notable additions were assistant manager Paolo Benetti and sports scientist Andrea Azzalin. Other coaches would remain in place, as would assistant managers Craig Shakespeare and Steve Walsh.
The latter also acts as head of recruitment and he was the man that scouted Kante. He was also the man that scouted Vardy and, on a trip to see a different player, Riyad Mahrez as well. When Arsenal hired Leicester technical scout Ben Wrigglesworth in February, Gary Lineker joked that they had gone after the wrong man. Along with coach Mike Stowell, both Shakespeare and Walsh were with the club as they forged their way with Nigel Pearson to League One and Championship titles. Walsh also worked part time for Chelsea as a scout for a number of years, including while Ranieri was there, and played a significant part in getting Gianfranco Zola to the Blues, among others. When Jose Mourinho replaced Ranieri, he promoted Walsh to a full-time European scout and was rewarded with players such as Michael Essien and Didier Drogba.
The 2015-16 Premier League season began, reasonably enough, with a 1-0 Manchester United win over Tottenham. In an opening weekend that saw West Ham shock Arsenal 2-0 at the Emirates thanks in part to a 16 year old debutant (Reece Oxford), a Philippe Coutinho wonder goal earn Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool a barely deserved 1-0 victory at Stoke and, most famously, Jose Mourinho completely lay into his own medical staff for treating an injured player late in a 2-2 home result vs Swansea… Leicester City’s 4-2 win over Sunderland was somewhat lost in the crowd. Still, goals to Vardy, Mahrez (2) and Albrighton capped a wonderful performance from the Foxes.
Claudio Ranieri: "It was a very good start and I am very happy with my players in the first match, which is so important in front of our fans. They supported us. I told my players to be the warriors for them.”
Next up they beat West Ham 2-1 on the road. Following that, an 82nd minute equaliser by Mahrez saved a 1-1 draw against Spurs. Then an 86th minute penalty saved a 1-1 draw against Bournemouth. When Leicester City then twice came back from 2-0 deficits – for a 3-2 win over Aston Villa and a 2-2 draw with Stoke – it was clear that the Foxes were onto something.
Nigel Pearson’s final competitive game in charge of Leicester was a 5-1 win over QPR. That day they lined up in a 3-5-2 formation, with Vardy and Ulloa up front, Mahrez in the hole and Schlupp and Albrighton as wingbacks. Ranieri played during pre-season with that same shape but down 2-0 in a friendly against Birmingham, he changed it up. He went to a 4-4-2 and they came back to win 3-2. Also on show that day was teenager Demarai Gray for Birmingham, who impressed so much that Leicester tried to transfer for him. Gray declined, saying he didn’t want to be involved in a relegation battle. The Foxes signed him five months later for £5m.
Playing with that formation, Jamie Vardy was given the freedom to play up front in the centre and make as many attacking runs as he possibly could – rather than the more responsible wide positions he often played under Pearson (but not all the time). Riyad Mahrez played from the right wing, often cutting inside onto his left while Albrighton was on the left. Huth and Morgan at CB, De Laet and Schlupp fullbacks. Andy King began in central midfield with Danny Drinkwater, though was soon replaced by Kante (as Swiss international Inler was never really able to establish himself). Shinji Okazaki and Leo Ulloa rotated at the second striker, Okazaki soon making it his own with his supreme workrate. They couldn’t hold possession all that well but they could counter hard with speed across the park – it wouldn’t be until their 19th game of the season that they were finally kept scoreless.
Jamie Vardy and Pizza Parties
And yet there were problems. Specifically in defence where they seemed incapable of keeping a clean sheet. They were torn up by an Alexis Sanchez hat-trick against Arsenal, going down 5-2 for their first loss of the campaign. Many pundits thought that with that the bubble had burst and regular assumed service would begin from there. As well as their rapid attack was playing, those results were unsustainable so long as they kept on conceding. Claudio Ranieri even went as far as bribing his players for motivation:
Ranieri after beating Villa 3-2: "Coming back from behind might be exciting, but it is not good. I told them, if you keep a clean sheet, I'll buy pizza for everybody. I think they're waiting for me to offer a hot dog too."
The one positive of the Arsenal loss was two more goals for Jamie Vardy, making it six already for the season and four games in a row having found the net. It was only the beginning.
Vardy was a man possessed at this time. The Foxes bounced back from defeat to Arsenal with a 2-1 win at Norwich. Vardy scored the first from the penalty spot. He then scored twice as they overcame a 2-0 half-time deficit to draw with Southampton, the equaliser coming in injury time. By now Ranieri had made a significant change to his first choice team. Despite being known as the Tinkerman for his many line-up changes when at Chelsea, he relied on a consistent team from the start with Leicester. But following that loss to Arsenal he shifted out his fullbacks. Jeffrey Schlupp, who prefers to play further forward usually, was swapped for Christian Fuchs and Ritchie De Laet was swapped for Danny Simpson. Two more defensively minded players, who could play a little more compactly with their centre backs. After two games it finally paid off as they kept their first clean sheet of the season with a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace. Jamie Vardy, of course, scored the lone goal and Ranieri was true to his word in taking the team out for some classic Italian cuisine… although he did insist they work for their own meals, the boss paying while the players pressed and tossed floury pizza bases.
It was the beginning of a four match win streak and Vary scored in all of them. His goal against Newcastle made it ten consecutive games with a goal and tied Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s Premier League record. The next game… at home to Manchester United, Van Nistelrooy’s old team. Vardy opened the scoring in a 1-1 draw to claim the record all for himself. Four years after he was playing for non-league Fleetwood Town in front of crowds of less than 1000 fans, he was breaking records on the country’s highest stage.
Claudio Ranieri: "I say my team is like the RAF, it's fantastic - whoosh whoosh! - I love it."
The Mid-Season Reckoning
Despite beating Swansea 3-0 in Wales, Vardy’s streak finally came to an end, although he did assist the third goal for Mahrez’s hat-trick. That result put them back atop the Premier League table. Having begun the season as 5000/1 odds for the title and 3/1 odds on relegation, they were now leading the pack but while the fairytale was capturing all attention (that and Mourinho’s situation), those odds weren’t coming down as fast as you’d believe. The consensus was that a very difficult run of fixtures in December would have them settling back down the table.
5000/1 odds sound almost unfathomable but they weren’t the longest ones on the title race (Bournemouth, for example, were 7500/1). Meanwhile the favourites were Chelsea, backed to repeat after running away with the trophy the previous time. And yet when the two met at King Power Stadium, it was Leicester on top and Chelsea lingering a few places above the relegation zone. In front of 32,000 supporters, Vardy scored in the first half and Mahrez doubled the lead shortly after the break. Loic Remy pulled one back but it was not enough to avoid a 2-1 defeat and not enough to save Jose Mourinho’s job. The Manager Formerly Known as the Special One was fired in the aftermath of this game.
Five days later Leicester beat Everton 3-2 at Goodison Park. The following week they were beaten 1-0 at Anfield by Liverpool. Christian Benteke scored the goal. If that was supposed to bring a stumbling then it did not as they commendably held Man City to a scoreless draw (their first scoreless game of the season). That match was a rare occasion where Ranieri shuffled his cards, playing five in the midfield with Gokhan Inler getting a start. Their third game in a week saw a less commendable 0-0 vs Bournemouth and then, a week after drawing with them in the FA Cup, a late Robert Huth goal gave Leicester a win over Tottenham.
A second period of reckoning came in February when the Foxes met Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal all in a row. Midweek against the Reds, Jamie Vardy scored twice including one of the goals of the season in a 2-0 win. Four days later perhaps the finest result of their season as Leicester City beat Manchester City 3-1 away from home. Robert Huth scored twice, Riyad Mahrez once. Man City were beaten by Spurs in their next game and then resoundingly done in by Liverpool in the one after that, causing them to fall out of the title race from there. From this point the Leicester City tale was no longer a whimsical, feel-good tease. Now even the most hardened doubters had to admit that their title credentials were for real.
Up 1-0 against Arsenal in that third game, the opportunity was there to deal another critical blow to a fellow championship contender until Danny Simpson was sent off. Theo Walcott drew the Gunners level and then Danny Welbeck, late in stoppage time, found a winner. With that Arsenal became the only team to do the double over the Foxes, although their own challenge fell off with consecutive losses to Manchester United and Swansea immediately after, as well as a draw with Spurs who, coming into the homeward stretch, shaped up to be the only true challengers to Leicester’s hopes.
The Run In
Having lost to Arsenal, Leicester City were now only two points clear, with both Spurs and Arsenal on their heels and Man City still in with a shot over the final 12 games. This final third of the season has for so long been the period that sorts the men from the boys and the champion teams of years gone by tend to be the ones that were able to bring it home without slip ups. The season began with Claudio Ranieri stressing the landmark of 40 points and safety. When they reached that number barely halfway through their fixture list, Ranieri suggested that they try double that mark. In this season of upsets and underdogs, 80 points would surely be enough to win the title but there was very little talk of that from the Leicester camp. Instead Ranieri was constantly easing the pressure with comments of excitement and encouragement. They were expected to be relegated, they had no expectations.
Claudio Ranieri after the City win: “We must enjoy it. This is a fantastic moment for the Premier League – nobody knows who can win it.”
Maybe in another season the mind games would have begun. A Sir Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho would try to plant doubts in the Leicester players, expose their inadequacies. Against Norwich they finally looked as if the pressure was getting to them as they toiled hard to no avail against a plucky Canaries side. They pressed and they pressed, even having the better of possession for once, but it appeared they were headed for a disappointing draw. That was right up until super sub Leonardo Ulloa popped up with an 89th minute winner. A day later Manchester United beat Arsenal and Spurs came from behind to beat Swansea.
If they escaped that time, they did not get away clean the next. After hitting back to take a 2-1 lead having gone behind early against West Brom, Craig Gardner equalised and the Baggies held on for a draw. That was the opening that Spurs had been waiting for. Win against West Ham and they’d be first on goal difference. The thing is… they didn’t. They lost 1-0 to West Ham, Michael Antonio with a 7th minute goal. At the same time as that was happening, Arsenal were losing to Swansea and fifteen minutes after that final whistle, Liverpool completed a 3-0 win over Manchester City. Leicester dropped two points and still extended their lead. They extended it further with a 1-0 triumph over Watford courtesy of a Mahrez stunner just hours after Spurs and Arsenal played out a draw.
Just as so many thought they couldn’t do, the Foxes went about grinding out results. That Watford win was the beginning of four straight 1-0 victories, beating Newcastle thanks to an Okazaki overhead kick, Palace thanks to a Mahrez goal from a Vardy cross and Southampton thanks to a Captain Morgan header. Following the Palace result in London, Leicester fans stayed behind singing the words: “we’re going to win the league!” for 15 full minutes before the Palace stadium announcer finally convinced them to leave. A 2-0 win over Sunderland, both goals to Jamie Vardy, ensured they were seven points clear of Spurs with five games remaining. Ranieri was in tears on the pitch afterwards. Now the finish line was in sight.
The Final Twist
Which was when things got complicated. In a game full of controversy, Vardy put Leicester in front on the counter. There were physical battles all over the park, with several cards coming out and even more being demanded from frustrated players. But no card carried more weight than the second yellow that Vardy picked up for a dive in the penalty area. It was a terrible dive, deserving of the reprimand, though that hardly silenced the desperate home crowd. Nor the striker himself, who doubled his suspension with some unrepeatable words of criticism at the ref’s decision.
It was still 1-0 with ten minutes remaining but two goals in three minutes between the 84th and 86th set the Hammers up for a fiery win. The first goal had come from a debatable penalty call as Winston Reid went down under pressure from Robert Huth while they tussled before a corner. The pair had been at it all game.
However even this twist had a twist, and deep into injury time Jeffrey Schlupp got in front of Andy Carroll and drew a foul. The referee duly pointed to the spot and Ulloa stepped up to make it 2-2. Tottenham won 4-0 at Stoke a day later.
Five points clear, four games to play. Ordinarily any title race includes multiple defining moments when depth players stood up to help overcome the loss of important starters. Not so much here. The Foxes had a near flawless run with injuries, allowing Ranieri something close to a full strength team to choose from for most of the season. He only used 23 players in total. What may have happened if Mahrez or Huth or Drinkwater had torn a muscle, what effect that may have had on their title run, we will never know. Kante had one brief spell out which Andy King covered for nicely. Vardy played through a couple of ailments, even having minor groin surgery at one stage, though he still didn’t miss a start until that suspension. Obviously there were a few other suspensions but nothing dramatic.
That they avoided those woes has something to do with good luck. Divine selection, perhaps. But it also has a lot to do with a club that puts a significant emphasis on its sports science and medical departments. Like, for example, the Cryo Chamber that they use for recovery, in which players dwell in temperatures as cold as -135 degrees. It’s like an ice bath, but dryer and much less harsh, in fact it apparently has a very refreshing and relaxing effect to where it even aids sleep that evening. The Cryo Chamber gets a lot of credit for working Jamie Vardy through his groin injury earlier in the season.
Playing without Vardy, they needn’t have worried. Mahrez put them one-up nice and quick, Ulloa added two and Albrighton a late sealer in a 4-0 win over Swansea. When Tottenham could only manage a draw against West Brom – Craig Dawson cancelling out his earlier own goal to condemn the Spurs – the trophy was now in their grasp. One more win would do it.
The Title
That win would not come at Old Trafford. Anthony Martial put Manchester United in front, Wes Morgan made it 1-1 and Leicester ended up holding on for the draw. It did not matter because 30 hours later Chelsea, Ranieri’s old club, fought back from two down to draw 2-2 with Spurs and ensure that the last remaining challenger could no longer catch them. Leicester City were Premier League champions.
Most of the Leicester players gathered at Jamie Vardy’s house to watch that game, adding new pertinence to the popular King Power Stadium chant: “Jamie Vardy is having a party!” Not Claudio Ranieri though. He was lucky to see the game at all after flying back to Italy to lunch with his 96 year old mother. After some “steak with chicory” and a few “strawberries with lemon and sugar”, he jetted back to England on Srivaddhanaprabha's private plane in order to get there in time to watch. As for the players at Vardy’s party…
When they returned to training after an extra day off they were met by an enormous media contingent baying for a comment, a photograph, a smile, a nod. The squad posed behind a banner reading: ‘Champions’. A few days later they hosted Everton at the King Power and Andrea Bocelli serenaded a sell-out crowd with his rendition of Nessun Dorma, drawing an enormous cheer as he revealed a Leicester City jersey beneath his jacket mid-song.
Ninety minutes later Leicester had hit that 80 point mark, having beaten Everton 3-1. Jamie Vardy scored twice to take his Premier League tally to 24 goals and Andy King, the club’s longest serving player, scored the other. Vardy could have had one more had he not blasted a penalty over the bar but that could hardly spoil the mood. The entire day was a celebration for the Foxes, both players and fans alike. The whole city, even. As the squad bounced in anticipation, as the crowd waited in pregnant silence, as the stadium seemed to shake with the weight of the moment… manager Claudio Ranieri and captain Wes Morgan hoisted the Premier League trophy aloft, blue tassels hanging down, triggering an explosion of fireworks, confetti and uncontainable joy. The miracle was complete.
The King, Now He Rests
Given that he met his end 478 years before the first official rules of football were drafted, it seems unlikely that King Richard III could have grown up a football fan. Perhaps he may have witnessed early incarnations of the game, there was a law passed in 1314 to ban the playing of such a sport in the streets of London and his brother Edward IV was one of a number of monarchs to try and eradicate it (with football deemed a distraction to the more noble – and medievally valuable – pursuit of archery). Henry VIII, the son of his usurper, was another to try and ban it… despite having commissioned the earliest known pair of football boots.
So as to any tangible link between the King and the Foxes, even the superstitious have to have their doubts. However in easing into the role of an undercover and unofficial mascot for the most incredible underdog story in modern sports, the legacy of Richard III has been drastically rewritten after centuries of slander. In order to strengthen his rival case to the throne, Henry VII and his people set about destroying Richard III’s reputation. He was labelled a greedy, hypocritical, deformed brute and that was an idea that was only strengthened by Shakespeare’s portrayal of him as an evil, hunchbacked man. It was a difficult image to shake. Sort of like how Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante were all overlooked by top scouts across England and Europe. Sort of like how Leicester City were written off for so long even as they passed almost every trial they came to. Sort of like how Claudio Ranieri was considered tame and uninspiring. Sort of like how Claudio Ranieri was supposed to be a restless tinker man.
Sort of like how Claudio Ranieri could never win the Premier League.
