Leicester City: From Relegation Battle to Premier League Winners

By Aryan Sanka (Year 10)

By 2016, just five teams had won the Premier League in its 24-year history. Since the turn of the millennium, the chasm between the top flight’s elite and the rest of the division had become seismic - few sides looked capable of breaching the top six, let alone mounting a title challenge. However, during the 2015/16 season, minnows Leicester who had narrowly avoided relegation the previous season and were 5,000-1 outsiders to win the league at the start of the campaign emerged as surprise title contenders. Pundits and experts insisted that they would eventually falter, and the pressure would get to them, but week after week the Foxes kept on winning. Confirmation that they had achieved the unthinkable came when second place Tottenham were held to a draw by Chelsea, handing victory to hard work and togetherness as Claudio Ranieri’s plucky underdogs were crowned champions of England. Leicester’s run during the 2015-16 Premier League season may go down as the biggest longshot championship in sports history. How’d they pull it off? The small market club took advantage of the down years that the “big” teams like Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Arsenal were going through to become the most unlikely champions in English football. Right is the winning team line-up of the 2015/16 season:

For all the headline-grabbing exploits of top scorer Jamie Vardy and twinkle-toed winger Riyad Mahrez, Leicester City's fairytale Premier League title success has been very much a collective effort. What is amazing is that the starting eleven that was responsible for this collective effort cost just £22m, according to a report by BBC, an amount that is less than half the amount Manchester City paid for Kevin de Bruyne at the start of the season! Their best players came in the form of the French midfielder N’golo Kante, English striker Jamie Vardy, Algerian winger Riyad Mahrez and Danish goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel...

The Key figures (all written from a 2015/16 perspective):

Kasper Schmeichel arrived at Leicester in 2011. Now 29, the Denmark international did not possess his father's extraordinary physicality, but was ever-present for Leicester this season, helping his low-scoring side record 15 vital clean sheets on course to Premier League glory. The young goalkeeper, who was signed from Leeds, cost Leicester just £1.25m. Schmeichel was miffed that Leeds decided to sell him- as reported by the Telegraph. Wonder what he feels now

Riyad Mahrez (Winger: £400,000)

The impish inspiration behind Leicester's success, Mahrez symbolises the fairytale journey that the club have overtaken over the past 12 months. Signed from Le Havre for just £400,000 in January 2014, the rakish, velvet-footed Algerian winger flitted in and out of the team 12 months ago as Leicester fought to stay in the division. But this season, he has been a sensation. His 17 goals including stunning strikes against Chelsea and Manchester City, and a hat-trick against Swansea City – as well as 11 assists- set up countless wins and saw him become the first African to be elected as England's Player of the Year by his peers. "Riyad is our light," said manager Claudio Ranieri. "When he switches on, Leicester change colour."

Leicester's talisman, the hard-running and prolific Vardy has become the snarling face of Ranieri's team. The wiry Yorkshireman's rags-to-riches tale has seen him rise from non-league obscurity to top-flight record-breaker, England international and Football Writers' Association (FWA) Player of the Year in just four years, even attracting the attention of Hollywood scriptwriters (a true underdog story). Despite scoring 22 goals, he looks poised to miss out on the Golden Boot, but he created Premier League history in the autumn by scoring in 11 consecutive games. Kudos to the Leicester scouts who managed to sign Vardy for just £1m.

Quite a lot of the players in this Leicester team were supposed to have been failed talents, a few of them from the Manchester United academy, free agents or from other places around the world, up for sale. But the real deal was N’golo Kante, who was named the ‘best player in the premier league’, after joining the club from the French side Caen. Even on the bench they had some wonderful superstars in the form of Andrej Kramarić, Ben Chilwell, Daniel Amartey and Demarai Grey who each play for some of the best teams or are even more well known since when they were a young talent on the substitute bench at Leicester City.

A £5.6 million ($8.2 million, 7.2 million euros) capture from French side Caen last year, Kante has astonished observers with his relentless energy, driving runs and extraordinary knack for recovering possession. Legendary former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson described him as "by far the best player in the Premier League" and he was shortlisted for the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) Player of the Year award. He won his first France cap in March and is a near-certainty for a place in Didier Deschamps's Euro 2016 squad.

By the end of the season, after drawing against 10th place Chelsea (2-2), Leicester City were 10 points clear of second place Arsenal. They defied the odds of 5000-1 by finishing before the likes of Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United and winning the premier league, establishing themselves as the best team in England.

Even after a stunning season from Jamie Vardy, he could not achieve the Golden boot after sending the ball in the back of the net 22 times. But, he did achieve an award after scoring in 11 consecutive games for the Wolves All that for just £1m was truly a game changer for Leicester.

This just goes to show that anyone can achieve the unthinkable with passion, a tank full of energy and even win as the underdogs, just like this cheap and inexperienced Leicester City team. The moral is that if you put your mind and all your energy towards your dreams then anything is possible. You might not have the talent that some of these footballers have but the passion and effort will drive you a long way and one step closer to achieving your goal (No pun intended)...