Leicester’s 2016 miracle endures amid League One drop, a decade on | OneFootball

Ten years after Leicester’s astonishing Premier League title, the club has scheduled a 30 May reunion at the King Power Stadium, yet relegation has clouded the party mood. According to L'Équipe, the announcement came on 20 April, a day before a 2-2 draw with Hull confirmed the drop to League One.

Some have since played down 2016, with ESPN noting it preceded Pep Guardiola’s arrival and a season when heavyweights underperformed. One writer from The Athletic argued there is a habit of cutting down those once celebrated, recalling Chris Sutton’s 2019 claim that Celtic’s reserves were still bigger than Leicester.

The backdrop was extraordinary. Bookmakers priced Leicester at 5,000-1, the same odds given to Lady Gaga becoming US president the following year. They survived 2014-2015 after 140 days bottom, sacked Nigel Pearson on 30 June 2015 after a sex scandal involving U21 players including his son, then hired Claudio Ranieri, 63, whose Greece stint ended in a home loss to the Faroe Islands.

Christian Fuchs, who joined that summer, said he initially wondered what he had signed up for. On a camp in Austria, Ranieri watched for a week, then told the squad he would not change their methods, sensing a bond.

Ranieri built around a counter-punching 4-4-2 and a hungry core. Jamie Vardy had come through the lower leagues, Riyad Mahrez cost €500,000 from Le Havre, and the XI that settled from October was assembled for roughly €30m, including €9m on N’Golo Kanté from Caen. He eased pressure, even after Vardy’s red against West Ham, by stressing they had already reached the Champions League.

Despite leading from January, players did not talk about a title and Fuchs said he only believed after Chelsea’s draw with Tottenham clinched it. The numbers still jar, with more than one point per match better than 2014-2015, only 15 players starting over three league games, and Vardy scoring in 11 straight matches, before a 7 May 2016 coronation against Everton that began with Andrea Bocelli singing Nessun Dorma beside a saluting Ranieri.

Source: L'Équipe