Now those minuscule few who were crazy enough to put their money on this club may well be whistling Elvis songs on their way to the bank. In this era of hard as nails professionalism and big money in football, Leicester quite literally rose like a phoenix, as its past credentials were hardly inspiring. The foxes' (as they are called) quietly went about their job of craftily outwitting fancied opponents and it really took a while for many to take notice, amid their smokescreens of scepticism.
After all who would even give chance for a team that had suffered near relegation last season to show any promise this year. The coach, Claudio Ranieri, had trained many biggies like Chelsea, Juventus etc, but failed to make any major splash, and his last assignment with Greece was a disgrace. About the players the lesser said the better. Very few of them had even played first division soccer. Second division players like Frenchman N’Golo Kante, Algerian Riyad Mahrez and Englishman Jamie Richard Vardy failed to invite even a second look from football pundits.
My off and on football antennae too failed to pick up Leicester phenomenon until a friend updated me about two months ago. Till then the only sports figure from Leicester I had heard of was cricketer David Gower, who used to represent Leicestershire in county cricket. But by the time I checked on Leicester FC it had garnered the eyeballs and overtaken all the biggies - the clubs based in Manchester and London.
The rest they say is history, though I would have loved them to finish off with a victory rather than an equaliser with Manchester United.
Also Read: Bangalore Beat
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