Congratulations to Leicester City FC!
Starting out with 5000- 1 odds as favourites to win the title (The biggest odds ever!) yet Champions after 36 games!
The first league title for Leicester in 132 years and the first league title ever for Claudio Ranieri after 28 years as manager!
The first new champions for 38 years!
What a story of passion, discipline, determination, diligence and hard work.
Mr Ranieri can finally say he conquered!
That the league title was finally won in London, during a fiercely contested game at Stamford Bridge is also an irony, the EPL finally departs London & Manchester to another English City, Leicester.
Would there be another underdog to come and ruffle the elite spenders?
This would now give belief to all managers and teams in the Premiership! Yes! It is possible! What else could be? What else can not be? Don’t bet against one of the elite teams going down the other end.
To think the fans sang Claudio Ranieri’s name at Stamford Bridge is also another irony not lost on some of us. He was sacked at Chelsea thirteen years ago by Roman Abramovich after failing to deliver the Premier League title and yet thirteen years on and in a season that saw his predecessor also sacked once again by the same person who sacked him, he goes on to win the league title with another club and on the same ground he was sacked
At the start of the season, even the neutrals grumbled at the choice of his appointment as manager of Leicester City and he was odds on favourites as the first manager to be sacked this season, but after 38 games, Ranieri has confounded his critics with results, with the English Premier League title.
And the players? This is the perfect Hollywood movie as they’ve all come from the grassroots, non-league, rejects and were least likely to succeed.
From least likely to worthy champions, Leicester have done everyone proud.
This is one of the biggest upsets in football history considering that 45 games ago, they were on the brink of relegation from the same premiership they just won!
They would be remembered for long even after they’re long gone.
Now no team will ever have any excuse not to win the League. All those excuses have now been taken out by Leicester :
– We are building a stadium
– We are a selling club
– We don’t have any money
– We don’t have billionaire money…….
Leicester have taken out all the excuses and the message is clear; if you are good enough you too can win it.
Congratulations to well deserved winners!
TOTTENHAM PLAY THEIR PART
Kudos to Mauricio Pochettino and his boys for putting up a fight, but when you look back at Monday night’s game and a few other games, youthful exuberance and inexperience, rather than ability or tactics cost Tottenham dearly.
Two goals up at the Bridge and forty five minutes to go, all they had to do to a poor Chelsea team was sit back, soak up the pressure and counter Chelsea, but instead Tottenham players just became emotional and lost their heads.
I sent a message on a forum “inexperience to cost Tottenham” and that was what happened, they just froze and began playing destructive football.
They have been through it this year and as a young team, they have gone through all the emotions of a title race – both good and bad – which can only do them good for next season.
They go home without a title again this season – they also lost the Capital One final last year to Chelsea – but I know they will come again and next season is laden with a lot of possibilities for the youngest team
In the Premiership.
CAN THE FA HELP?
In other Top European countries, qualifying for the latter stages of the UEFA Champions League is widely celebrated, not just within the individual club sides, but within the body of the national football federations.
So what is our problem in England?
Why do we suffer our Champions League semi-finalists go through searing pain?
Two seasons ago, Chelsea FC was on the receiving end, made to play on a Sunday before a Champions League semi-final date and this season it’s Manchester City that have been made to play in a Sunday before a midweek Champions League Semi final.
In Spain, domestic games are moved to Saturdays for any team in the semi-finals of the UCL and in Germany, Italy and France, similar practices are observed.
After all, the team playing in Europe still wins the UCL for its country if they do win.
After all if the team wins, they possibly raise the quota of the country’s teams in the UCL or Euro league?
So which part of this do the FA not understand?
Why stubbornly continue to fix games on Sundays before crucial Champions League games?
Unless they eventually want to see the number of English teams in UCL reduced to three, can the FA act, by stepping in to stop the punishment of domestic Sunday games on crucial UCL weeks.
A stitch in time saves nine.