Leicester City celebrated the Premier League title ten years ago. Now it’s time to drop down to the third series level again.
Leicester City’s players celebrated the first English league championship in the club’s history in the spring of 2016. AOP
In May 2016 Leicester Pier Marc Albrighton had decided to stay at home to watch the league match between Chelsea and Tottenham.
He knew that a large part of the team was excited about the outcome of the superstar Jamie Vardy at home.
Eden Hazard’s A 2-2 draw in the 83rd minute meant Spurs’ title chances crashed at Stamford Bridge.
At the same time, Albrighton got busy.
– I told my mother to take me to Vardy’s house. On the way there, he called and advised to go to the nearby police station, the pier recalled in the podcast.
The police received the player. A teammate Ben Chillwell was already sitting on the station benches.
The reason for the detour came to light when the police convoy left to take the duo towards Vardy’s house.
– Thousands of fans had filled the roads around Vardy’s home. They climbed the fence to catch even a glimpse of the players. A police convoy took the players away with sirens blaring, but despite that, the supporters were banging on the windows.
Scandal
The enthusiasm of the Leicester fans was understandable. The club had never before won the English league championship in its entire 132-year history.
Now that was true.
The beginning of the season was by no means rosy. The manager who signed Albrighton Nigel Pearson was sacked in the summer training camp despite keeping Leicester in the Premier League against all expectations.
Ketut had been firmly in the league jumbo the previous Christmas.
However, after the season, the Daily Mail newspaper revealed how the striker Tom Hopperthe goalkeeper Adam Smith and a member of the coaching staff James Pearson – The manager’s own son – had filmed their racist sex orgy in a Bangkok hotel.
Jamie Vardy scored no less than 24 goals in the championship season. EPA / AOP
The pictures spread everywhere, and the club management could no longer hide the scandal.
Pearson got a shoe, and the Italian, who was already approaching retirement age, was called to the emergency Claudio Ranieri.
He had received the job of coach of the Greek national team only a little earlier, partly also because Jarkko Hurmeen volley prevented the home team from winning in Athens in October 2014.
Record multiplier
The choice was understandable given Pearson’s reputation, especially as the owner of Leicester Vichai Srivaddhanaprabhan at home in Thailand had gone.
However, experts considered the team’s chances of staying in the Premier League to be non-existent.
Nobody talked about the championship. Betting agencies promised the money back in 5000 times if Ketut really won the league title.
It’s not just football – but sports betting as a whole – with the largest realized fixed odds.
Ranieri strengthened the team even before the start of the season with an unknown Frenchman With N’Golo Kantéwho just a couple of years earlier had played in the reserves of the third division club Boulogne.
N’Golo Kanté (center Chelsea) and Riyad Mahrez (left Manchester City) soon moved to more lucrative clubs. AOP
The rest is history. Ranieri, who demanded the attention of his players with his funny “dilly ding dilly dong” call, created a top combination of the team that defends disciplinedly and counterattacks with ease.
Kanté snatched the ball in midfield, Riyad Mahrez continued it forward and Vardy ran away from the opposing defenders.
On the finish line Kasper Schmeichel saw to it that Leicester only lost three league games all season.
That left second-placed Arsenal ten points behind. Gunners midfielder Mikel Arteta played the last match of his career as Leicester celebrated their sensational title win.
Back to the bottom
A lot has happened in ten years. Arteta, who advanced to Arsenal’s Manager, celebrates the Premier League championship with the Gunners.
Former Leicester managers Claudio Ranieri (right) and Nigel Pearson visited Leicester 2018 to reminisce about the past. EPA / AOP
The home draw with Hull at the end of April meant that Leicester City was already relegated to League One, the third highest league level.
It had previously been so low only once, in the 2008–09 season. Then the visit only lasted a year, because the club management understood to hire the talented Nigel Pearson as Manager.
Inherited the ownership of Leicester from his father, who died tragically in a helicopter accident Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha has to think about how to bring Ketut back to the top.