“It couldn't be done, somebody said that it couldn't be done…”
There is no way they could have done it. When the sun sat on Saturday, February the 7th, 2015, Leicester City Football Club stay rooted to the bottom of the English Premier League.
Earlier that day, they had lost a close game 1-0 to Crystal Palace at home – their 14th loss of the season. After 24 games, they had just 17 points - no one had ever survived with such a low tally, so late into the season. It simply couldn’t be done.
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Or so we thought.
It started in April, with a win against West Ham United at home (their first since early January) – a run of results where they won six, drew one, and lost only to Champions elect Chelsea. By the time they kicked off their last game of the season against Queens Park Rangers, there was no doubt that they would still be in the Top Division come the 2015-16 season. They beat Rangers 5-1 in that last game.
A month later they fired their manager. Hard-headed, temperamental and vastly knowledgeable about the game, Nigel Pearson had led Leicester from League One to the Championship in his first spell, and then guided them to promotion to the Big-Boy League in his second; where he had engineered that most unprecedented of relegation escapes.
For, despite the miracle-working, Pearson’s outburst of madness had laid constant stress with the management, and a sordid affair involving his son and a few reserve players in the owner’s home nation sealed his fate.
Bad PR, decided the men in charge (Thai Duty-Free Mogul Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in this case), was worse than any possible footballing benefits Pearson brought to the side. So, they fired the man who “did” what everyone said “couldn’t be done”.
Hah. Those foolish foreigners! With their greatest asset gone, they said that Leicester were primed to go down, or at the very least get into another relegation dogfight. Then they hired Claudio Ranieri, last seen at the helm of the sinking Greek national team.
Leicester City legend, life-long fan and respected ‘TV pundit’ reflected the footballing world’s general emotions in three succinct words – “Claudio Ranieri? Really?” Even before the season began, the Foxes had been relegated.
Through all this, Ranieri smiled that benign, kindly-old-man smile of his and got down to work. For a long while though, it didn’t seem like he was doing much.
For a man nicknamed “Tinkerman” during his last stint in England (with Chelsea) this seemed particularly curious. Why wasn’t he doing anything different to Pearson? Why hasn’t he doing something “out of the box”, or coming up with “innovative ideas”? This was just further proof that the Foxes had gotten the wrong.
In a world which hankers for “new ideas” like a puppy does attention, this was just further proof that the old man was well and truly out of place.
But he had been doing something. While the ‘experts’ hammered on, what Ranieri - using the might of 43 years of footballing experience at the top level across Europe - had done was appreciate a fundamental truth of life: there is no force on Earth as potent as Momentum.
‘If it ain't broke, don’t fix it’, even if that’s a 4-4-2
Ranieri realized very early on that harnessing the incredible momentum generated in April/May was the key to success at the East Midlands club. He kept tweaking here and there, imperceptible little touches that kept that state of momentum growing; even if that meant going against that very essence of modern football – the three man (central) midfield. (Curiously, this was a tactical innovation that Ranieri himself had a decisive hand in popularizing in England when he bought Claude Makélelé to Chelsea and used him to destroy that very English concept of the two-man central midfield.)
Eschewing the comfort offered by three men in the middle of the park, Leicester have been playing a good old fashioned 4-4-2 game-in and game out. Giving up the dominance of the ball possession, they have looked at compressing the pitch and combining it with a run-till-you-die attitude that has allowed the two men in the middle of the park to boss packed, three-man midfield across the nation.
The run-till-you-die attitude has permeated throughout, with the wingers diligently chipping in to protect the team’s flanks and the extra striker dropping into the hole to form a 4-4-1-1 when the team doesn’t have the ball.
All season, they’ve attacked in the refreshing manner of those who have nothing to lose. Insultingly direct, Ranieri has remodeled English football’s fine long-ball traditions suit the team’s strengths – instead of first-time long balls to striker’s heads/chests, the balls are hit into channels between and behind the defence where the sheer, unbridled pace of Leicester’s attack truly comes into its own.
Their possession and passing stats are damning, third lowest possession numbers (43.7%), lowest pass accuracy (an abysmal 69.3%) and second lowest short passes (267 per game) but the interception and tackles put in numbers are off the charts, highest (21.8) and second highest (22.6) respectively.
Following the American (US) model – statistical analysis are often touted by many as the ultimate method of understanding a football.What hogwash.
In our quest for shining light on individual moments of glory and focusing on percentages and decimal points to tell us how the team is doing, we often miss arguably the most important factors in the success of a team -Spirit and Chemistry. They have been the cornerstone upon which the Foxes’ triumphs have been built; how from a motley assortment of has-beens and almost-could’ve-beens to straight up journeymen, Leicester City have evolved into an almost army-esque brotherhood..
Normally you would say that would stifle individual genius, cut out the maverick-ness of the team’s best players. But Ranieri has not done that. He’s used the team to bring out the best in his players individually.
The electric Jamie Vardy and the waif-like wizard Riyad Mahrez are the most exciting players in the league. N’Golo Kanté has been more influential in central midfield than anyone else across Europe’s top leagues.
This fine balance has won them games all season. Quite a lot of them, in fact.
But he with a chuckle repliedThat "maybe it couldn't," but he would be oneWho wouldn't say so till he'd tried
As the sun dawned on Sunday, the 7th of February, 2016, they still said “it couldn’t possibly be done”. The phrase felt oh!-so familiar to the Foxes. And yet, the context couldn’t be more different. Where a year back the whispers had been dark and pessimistic, today they are full of awe and wonder. How a year can change things.
Leicester City, 5000/1 to win the league when it all started back in August, are now five points clear at the top of the table, after having absolutely smashed title-challengers Manchester City 3-1 the day before.
They had led the table for the first three weeks of the season, and it had been cute - “Aww, look at that! Last season’s strugglers are on top!” Then when they dropped to sixth by the end of September it looked like things were being straightened up – but they went on the rampage again and were back on top by November.And they have stayed there. It is no longer cute.
The story of this season has rapidly become one with the plucky underdog as the lead character, and not just an interesting sideshow.
Leicester City Football Club certainly fit the ‘underdog’ tag to the T. In the 132 years of their history, they haven’t won the nation’s top division once. The last time they came close was nearly 90 years ago when they finished second in ’28-’29. The last time they put up a challenge was in ’63-’64; they finished fourth, but the Ice Kings are the stuff of legend.
Individually, they have the characters that could easily make the cast of any good feel-good sports tale. A goalkeeper finally throwing off the shadow of an illustrious father and making a name for himself (Kasper Schmeichel), centre-back partners who were dismissed as the epitome of good-for-Championship-only-but-out-of-depth-at-the-top (Wes Morgan) and over-the-hill (Robert Huth) but are now feared by everyone.
Then there’s a winger who was once touted as potential superstar material then faded away but is now turning one consistent performance after the other (Marc Albrighton), and a midfielder who graduated from the academy of the biggest team in the land, didn’t once take the field for them and is now running the Foxes midfiled like an old Don (Danny Drinkwater).
And also players who have gone from a ‘what-was-his-name-again’ to some of the hottest properties in world football (Mahrez, Kanté, Vardy).
They are even endearingly old-school – Ranieri rewarded the team for keeping clean sheets by buying them pizza!- and their owners are a wonderfully fan-friendly lot who celebrated finishing top on Christmas by plying the patrons at the King Power stadium with free beer! These are things that simply don’t happen in today’s sanitised, ultra-professional football milieu.
This isn’t a movie. This is real life.
And in real life money and power always come up top. Foxes are hunted; it doesn’t work the other way around. Foxes can run fast, and think faster, but the hunters keep coming back with bigger guns and better hounds. The Big boys, the Establishment, will come at any pretender with all guns blazing – “You can be good, but you can’t afford the best – can you?”
Manchester City had forked out around seven times more for Raheem Sterling (~49 million) than Leicester City had for their entire starting eleven. Elite sport at the highest level is most often decided simply by who have the most – in the backrooms; for that is what translates directly into who has the most on the pitch.
That’s why Barcelona and Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern Munich, the big 4 in England (the Manchester clubs, Chelsea and Arsenal) always seem to end up on top. That’s why it’s all too predictable these days.
And that’s why what is happening with Leicester City is so damn important. Football was crying out for them.
Football, and indeed all Sport, is nothing without that x-factor of unpredictability. It is what fuels dreams and feeds magic into mundane, everyday lives. It is what makes sports so beautiful; just the existence of the possibility that, for once, the little guy can win.
Next season, Lionel Messi could be trotting out to play a Champions League game against the Champions of England at the King Power Stadium in front of 30,000 who had only a couple of years back played host to Yeovil Town FC.
If that doesn’t make you believe in the magical power of sport, I doubt anything will.
Here’s to dreams, football, and Leicester City Football Club
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done But he with a chuckle repliedThat “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin On his face. If he worried he hid it.He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that; At least, no one ever has done it;”But he took off his coat and he took off his hat And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, Without any doubting or quiddit,He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it.There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, There are thousands to prophesy failure,There are thousands to point out to you one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you.But just buckle in with a bit of a grin, Just take off your coat and go to it;Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
- Edgar A. Guest
