Against All Odds - Leicester 2016

Football's Greatest Stories - Issue 3.

Championship in 2014. Rock bottom of the league in April 2015. Champions come May 2016. Fuelled by Kante, Mahrez and Vardy, guided by Claudio Ranieri, and despite 5000/1 odds, Leicester pulled off what some would consider the greatest football underdog story in history. Let’s break it down.

In the 2013/14 season, Leicester City played their football in the championship. Under the management of Nigel Pearson, they fought for promotion to the Premier League. And after a season in which they accumulated 102 points, they won the Championship and were promoted to the Premier League. However, the start to their first season back in the top flight was one that almost resulted in their relegation. They sat dead last in the Premier League in April 2015, with only 9 games left to play. During this season, they went on an 13 game winless streak.

Despite being sat on 19 points, dead last in the league, Leicester managed to pull off “the great escape” of surviving the Premier League from the most dire of circumstances. They finished the league on 41 points, after winning 7 of their last 9 games, with one loss and one draw. This saw them finish in 14th place, with their 9-game run yielding more points than they had earned from the other 29 matches combined throughout the entire season.

But before we get to the magical 15/16 season, let’s talk about Leicester’s scouting. Specifically the scouting of Steve Walsh. He joined Leicester City in 2011, and while at the club, he scouted the trio of players (among others) who led Leicester to their 2016 title; Jamie Vardy (who joined the club in 2012), Riyad Mahrez (who joined in 2014), and N’Golo Kante (who joined in 2015). Without Walsh’s scouting of these 3 players, Leicester would not have had the firepower to win the Premier League against all odds.

As well as the signing of N’Golo Kante, the man you see above, Claudio Ranieri, was appointed manager of Leicester City ahead of the 2015/16 season. It was the two additions to Leicester above, as well as other factors, that allowed Leicester to win the 2016 Premier League. Kante made the most obvious difference to Leicester, breaking up and tearing through midfields like never before, and Jamie Vardy described playing with him as like “having a 12th man” on the pitch. According to Vardy, “There was nothing that [other teams] could do” about Kante, and Vardy was absolutely right. With Kante breaking up play in the middle of the pitch, it was impossible for other teams to get into their rhythm, and with his ability to stride forward with the ball and start attacking play, Leicester turned into goalscoring machines thanks to the goals from Vardy and Mahrez and the fluidity provided by Kante.

Leicester did have some defensive issues though, and struggled to keep clean sheets at the beginning of the season. Despite this initial inability to keep clean sheets, they improved enough defensively that they were top of the league at Christmas, with Arsenal and Man City the closest teams behind. Vardy was on fire, Leicester’s Algerian gem Mahrez was on fire, and Kante was on fire. The whole team was clicking, and all they needed was a massive surge to dominate the second half of the season as they had done in the first half.

And in the second half of the season, Vardy, Kante and Mahrez continued to provide. Kasper Schmeichel continued to make legendary saves. Danny Drinkwater and Marc Albrighton were also key figures for Leicester. The form of all of these players, combined by the brilliance of the coach and the support of the fans allowed Leicester to win the league by a 10 point margin, clear of second placed Arsenal and third placed Tottenham, with Vardy joint second in the golden boot with Aguero, coming one goal behind Kane. This was the end of the greatest underdog story in English football history, when Leicester City went from relegation troubles to Premier League victory in 2 seasons.

If you enjoyed reading this free newsletter, make sure to give it a like, as it helps to boost it to new people and allows the newsletter to grow. Make sure to read my last newsletter if you haven’t already; it’s about Kevin De Bruyne, and why he will go down as the greatest creative midfielder in Premier League history. It’s linked below.