SN 140 Moments: No. 15 – Longshot Leicester City storms to Premier League championship originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Leicester were 5000/1 to win the Premier League at the start of 2015/16. They finished 14th the season before, having only been promoted back from the Championship in 2014. Claudio Ranieri replaced Nigel Pearson as manager a month before the campaign started, and the appointment of the ex-Chelsea manager was met with widespread derision.
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What followed was the most miraculous title upset in the history of league football, and one that is still hard to explain.
Leicester were crowned champions when Tottenham Hotspur, their nearest challengers, played out a tempestuous draw with Chelsea in May 2016. The Foxes ended the season 10 points clear of Arsenal in second place, losing just three of their 38 matches. They lost 19 the season before.
It is difficult to quantify the magnitude of Leicester’s achievement. Yes, it owed a lot to a relative lack of quality among the usual elite — Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte had not yet arrived in England, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal were declining, Liverpool only appointed Jurgen Klopp midway through the season, and Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United were average and uninspiring. But this was a team coached by a man considered too long in the tooth, whose best three players — N’Golo Kante, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez — cost a combined £7 million ($10.5m).
Given the Premier League’s riches and the dominance of the biggest and wealthiest clubs, Leicester winning the title simply shouldn’t have happened. It will certainly never happen like this again.
MORE: Back to The Sporting News’ 140 Greatest Sports Moments of All Time