Former England captain Terry Butcher is a regular Prost columnist
Design: Brent Diskin
Barring some kind of dramatic disaster, Leicester City will be crowned worthy Champions of England, and cap one of the most unbelievable upsets in football and sporting history.
In NFL terms, it would be like the Tennessee Titans winning the Superbowl in 2017; or the Atlanta Braves taking the Baseball World Series this year; and an Afghanistan crew sailing to an unprecedented Admiral’s Cup triumph.
How the mighty have fallen in the Premier League though– Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United should all hang their heads in shame for allowing the paupers from the King Power Stadium to gloriously steal the family silverware from right under their own precious noses. Spending a fraction of the Big Four’s wealth, Leicester’s Band of Brothers have shown resilience, organisation, spirit, tenacity, intelligence, bravery and no less skill to more than shame their illustrious opponents. Money can buy top talent but temperament and tactical togetherness can, and does, overcome flair and ability.
Leicester could never have taken on these English giants and the rest of the Premier League by going head to head in possession and passing; a fast, simple but extremely effective counter-attacking style of play was the only way to beat the statistical giants, and frustrate opponents that treated Leicester’s progress with contempt.
These tactics had been introduced in the successful relegation battle the previous season, and increased in intensity after August, so much so that the Foxes only suffered one league defeat before Christmas. Ranieri’s men became not a team of stars but a star team and, although Arsenal completed the double over them, a 3-1 victory at the Etihad against Manchester City with 14 games to go, made everyone finally believe that Mission Impossible was very much achievable.
Leicester will never play like Bayern, Real Madrid or Barcelona but next season these three Galacticos won’t enjoy playing against them in the Champions League, unless key players leave the English Champions in the summer. This would be a huge shame because everyone wants to see the dream continue – remember Aston Villa won the League in 1981 and went on to secure the European Cup the following year, and Atletico Madrid came so close by losing in the Final, two years ago.
The Leicester City success story is so refreshing and appropriate as just lately, extortionate amounts of money and so-called moneyball formulae have threatened to dominate sport more than ever. In a league that was becoming stale and predictable, Leicester has re-written the script.
Too many European leagues have the same winners every year (France has PSG, Italy has Juventus and so on) but, apart from Tom Hanks and his remarkable wager, hardly anyone tipped little old Leicester to finish first. Will we ever see such another upset?
Maybe we will, if rumours of a Hollywood production surrounding Jamie Vardy are true, but even if it makes the silver screen, I still won’t believe that it actually happened!
