The miracle of Leicester City

This article first appeared in the Mar/Apr 2016 issue of WGM.

No matter where Leicester City ultimately finish in the Premier League this May, manager Claudio Ranieri and his players will be able to look back at their season with pride. Front runners at the halfway mark and having retained top spot come the start of February, they sat three points clear of powerful Manchester City after 24 games having outlasted widespread predictions of an inevitable demise. In fact, so remarkable has their rise been that Hollywood producers recently attended their home league clash with Liverpool to see if Leicester’s fairy tale story is worthy of the big screen. So how did this small English town suddenly become a Premier League powerhouse?

It was only last summer, less than 12 months ago, that Leicester City – having barely avoided relegation during the 2014/15 season – appeared to be crumbling both on and off the pitch. During the club’s pre-season trip to Thailand, several players – including manager Nigel Pearson’s own son James – were involved in a disgraceful sex scandal in a hotel room. The dramatic incident led to holistic personnel changes at Leicester with three players sacked and Pearson prompted to step down from the top job. Some of the club’s new arrivals, such as Austria’s national captain Christian Fuchs, never even had an opportunity to train with the former manager before his sudden departure.

Needless to say, expectations were far from high heading into this season and the appointment of Italian “Tinkerman” Claudio Ranieri as Pearson’s replacement was initially met with extreme skepticism. Despite a history of helping rebuild ailing clubs during previous stints at Chelsea, Juventus, Roma and Inter Milan among others, Ranieri’s lack of silverware over the years was seen as a major stumbling block and far removed from owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s promise of bringing big names Leicester’s way.

Former England great and diehard Leicester City fan Gary Lineker even tweeted at the time, “Claudio Ranieri? Really?” in a clear display of his dissatisfaction. Veteran manager Harry Redknapp similarly announced his surprise at the appointment, tweeting, “Ranieri is a nice guy, but he’s done well to get the Leicester job. After what happened with Greece, I’m surprised he can walk back into the Premier League.”

It’s ironic that Ranieri’s last appointment before arriving at Leicester was also his most disastrous. Having taken over as manager of the Greek national team following the 2014 World Cup, he lasted just four months following a shocking run of results that included three losses in four games – the final nail in his coffin being a shock 1-0 loss to the Faroe Islands in a Euro 2016 qualifier in November of 2014.

But Ranieri has transformed Leicester City. As of Week 24, they had lost just twice all season to sit alone at the top of the Premier League. And despite his reputation for excessive tinkering with the teams he manages – thus his nickname of the “Tinkerman” – Ranieri has done so by adopting a simple game plan comprising rock solid defense and a lethal counter-attack.

The stats tell the story. As of Round 24, Leicester averaged 71 long balls per game – equal fourth most in the league – while their 269 short passes per game saw them ranked 19th ahead of only West Bromwich Albion. At the end of those long balls has been none other than Jamie Vardy, who with 18 goals is the Premier League’s top scorer. On average, one in 10 of Vardy’s touches in that time was a shot and goal, with one in every 34.5 touches finding the back of the net. This figure is the most outstanding in the league, second to none.

In other words, rather than rely on possession or pass accuracy like the “elite” teams such as Arsenal or Chelsea, Leicester has continually left opponents stranded with very quick and effective counter-attacking. They defend as a tight unit at the back, then attack with lightning speed once they have possession of the ball. And they do it better than anyone else.

So why are the Foxes so outstanding at a tactic that has been traditionally very common amongst the smaller clubs? Primarily, it comes down to the importance of their duel strikers – Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. The 29-year-old Englishman Vardy exhibited his astonishing instinct for goal in Leicester’s home clash against Liverpool in early February when he hit an amazing volley to open the scoring in the second half. The goal involved only two touches including his strike and came on the end of a long ball from none other than Mahrez. Leicester City’s success is very much based on these world-class players.

Mahrez is a French-born Algerian most fans had never heard of before he moved to Leicester City in January 2014. Recruited from French second-tier club Le Havre for less than £1 million, he couldn’t even locate Leicester on a map at the time! Yet he has become the key player, scoring eight goals and producing eight assists in their rise to the top.

Leicester’s scouting team had actually gone to France to look at another player in 2013 but were stunned by Mahrez’s ability. Although still very raw at the time and with a small physique, his speed and superb technique caught their eye and they returned a few more times before another brilliant performance in a match against Auxerre convinced them. Mahrez immediately showed promise upon landing in the Premier League, with some comparing his technique to Barcelona star Lionel Messi. Instead of putting him in Messi’s number 10 role though, Ranieri deployed him on Leicester’s left flank – allowing him to use his dribbling skills and speed to take on defenders, cut inside and create shooting opportunities.

Of course, the success of the club is not only built on their two strikers. Defensively they have proven to be very difficult to break down with defensive midfielder N’Golo Kanté, centre back Wes Morgan and goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel forming a particularly solid spine.

And while winning the Premier League would certainly fit the mold of the modern day miracle, Leicester City’s fairytale has had its predecessors.

After all, who can forget Greece’s incredible victory at the European Championships in 2004? The man who engineered that result, German manager Otto Rehhagel, had previously produced a similar miracle when he not only guided FC Kaiserslautern from the second-tier of German football back to the Bundesliga, but proceeded to win the league the very next season at the expense of the club that had previously sacked him, Bayern Munich.

Yet given the quality of Kaiserslautern’s playing stocks at the time, even their dramatic rise might not compare to that of Leicester City. Among those plying their trade for the German club at the time was a 20-year-old future German captain Michael Ballack, national team striker Olaf Marschall and Swiss captain Ciriaco Sforza.

Kaiserslautern has also been a very strong side at various times with four league titles and two domestic cups to its name in the last century. By contrast, Leicester City is truly a small club with little success to speak of in their 132 year history.

If anything, the story of Leicester City’s rise is more akin to that of Nottingham Forrest in 1978. Under the guidance of legendary manager Brian Clough, Nottingham Forrest – a club of similar means to the Foxes – successfully won promotion to the top flight of English football in 1976/77 then astonishingly won the league and cup double the following year – beating the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham in the process. Forrest’s miracle didn’t end there either – 12 months later they translated their success to Europe by also winning the Champions League! From second-tier minnows to champions of Europe in just two years, Forrest became the quintessential rags to riches tale.

As the current Premier League season enters its final stages, time will tell whether Leicester City can repeat that feat. But no matter the result, they have given us a truly mesmerizing story and reason to believe that, sometimes at least, dreams can come true.