Leicester (England): Thousands celebrated and millions around the world watched in wonder as 5,000-1 underdogs Leicester City completed arguably the greatest fairytale in sporting history by becoming English Premier League champions.
Second-placed Tottenham Hotspur’s 2-2 draw at Chelsea late on Monday was enough for last year’s relegation battlers to seal a scarcely credible title after outshining some of football’s most glamorous teams.
Masterminded by manager Claudio Ranieri, Leicester’s season of 22 wins out of 36 games and just three defeats was enough to make them champions with two games to spare for the first time in their 132-year history.
After fighting off relegation last year and being rated 5,000-1 for the title at the start of the season, the Thai-owned club pulled off a shock rated by many as the biggest seen in sport.
The modest East Midlands club are England’s first new champions since Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest in 1978, and their surge in the world’s most watched football league has won them admirers across the globe.
Dancing fans waving blue and white flags poured onto the streets of Leicester, while footage on Twitter showed the team celebrating wildly as they watched Monday’s game at the home of talismanic striker Jamie Vardy. The players can now look forward to another title party when they lift the trophy at their 32,000-seater King Power Stadium following Saturday’s home game with Everton.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling. I’ve never known anything like it,” said Vardy. “We were scrapping to stay in the league last season and on Saturday we’ll be lifting the trophy. “It’s the biggest achievement in the history of a great club and we all feel privileged to be part of it.”
With the Premier League a global sporting phenomenon, attracting billions of pounds in television rights deals, Leicester’s triumph has been followed worldwide. The Foxes’ previous best season in the English top flight was a second-place finish in 1929, and their last piece of silverware was the 2000 League Cup.
Britain’s newspapers turned blue in homage, while the Economist magazine asserted: “There has never been a more improbable victory in any sport.”
Twitter said Leicester’s win triggered an 86 per cent increase in activity on the social media site in Britain.
Fans in Leicester, population 330,000, gathered to watch the game in bars and pubs and roared on Chelsea, the outgoing champions, as if supporting their own team. There were scenes of delirium at Hogarths pub, near Leicester Cathedral where 15th-century monarch king Richard III was reinterred in March last year.
Leicester Mayor Peter Soulsby suggested there could be “streets named after him, freedom of the city, statues” in Ranieri’s honour. Fifa, world football’s governing body, congratulated the Foxes on a “magical story”.
