Leicester City FC

It was the 4th of April 2015, and the football club from the small city of Leicester, located in the East Midlands of England, was 20th in the English Premier League with just 22 points and only eight matches remaining. Manager Nigel Pearson was at the helm, and he led the Foxes to win six of their remaining matches to finish 14th in the final standings. It was not enough to save Pearson’s job, however, and a new manager was brought in. The choice, Claudio Ranieri, was ridiculed by the press at the time because of his previous reputation of not being able to achieve anything at any club. The rest, as you could say, was history.

Leicester was deemed favorites for the drop to the Championship the following season, with the odds of 5000-to-1 for them winning the title. Yet they completed the miracle of winning the league and won the heart of every fan, with outstanding players like Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy leading the charge. Mahrez had cost them 400,000 pounds (and would later net them 60 million pounds when they sold him to Manchester City), Vardy came through the lower leagues, and another star, N’Golo Kante, had joined from the second division of French football.

But we’ll return to that in a moment.

After winning the league, the next season they finished 12th while losing one of their most valuable players in Kante to Chelsea. They also brought in Wilfred Ndidi and Namplays Mendy. Now, not all transfers work out admittedly, but Ndidi represented a masterstroke. This season was the beginning of shrewd transfer dealings, and they generally have stuck to their working formula of assessing what they need and going out to find exactly the player that fits the bill and is attainable.

By doing this, the Foxes successfully replaced the Mahrez with the acquisition of James Maddison, Kante with Ndidi, Dennis Drinkwater with Youri Tielemans (greatest upgrade ever), to name a few. With the emergence of players like Ben Chillwell (since sold to Chelsea), Harvey Barnes from their academy, and the hiring of Brendan Rodgers – who is currently the best manager in England only behind Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp in my opinion – they are slowly building a club that are regularly challenging for the top four. They finished 5th last season, and currently sit in 3rd at the moment. They have built an exciting young squad with likes of Maddison, Ndidi, Barnes, James Justin, Wesley Fofana, Tielemans and Cengiz Ünder (on loan). They additionally have a few experienced players with Kasper Schmeichel, Wes Morgan, Christian Fuchs, Jonny Evans, and Vardy to lead. All in all, they possess a balance of youth and experience with an attacking manager who knows how to bring the best out of his players while having defensive stability and tactical awareness of games.

Leicester has a small budget for operating the team, the staff, the academy, and the stadium. They have started spending money increasing their international reach and have spent money to keep up with the big boys of the league investing heavily on the stadium, brand expansion, and players. And even with all the issues the club faced during their rise from a lower league to a Champions league team, they have held true to their conviction of giving their all for the club. They have observed challenging periods with the club, having gone through a few managers, the death of their Chairman, and many more untold stories. But they have fought and are still here and are here to stay.

The comical thing is, I myself am a Chelsea FC fan since 2008. Even so, I find myself strangely supporting them while I watch them play – at least against other non-Chelsea clubs. I want them to be one of the leading clubs because Leicester are the ultimate underdogs, the team we follow in the movies, the guys we follow through their journey, and how even people who have had bad times achieving their dreams just because they stuck to it.

In conclusion, I want to say that Leicester’s champion campaign was the greatest season I can recall that I have seen in my lifetime in any sports history. I want them to be the perennial underdogs who continually fight their way into the big boy’s group. Therefore, thank you Leicester City FC for making me and millions of people like me to believe that just keeps on going and fight for what you want.

It might take you years, but you actually might achieve what you dreamed of.