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The Premier League had a big surprise for fans this year. As the main attraction of English football for most of the year, Leicester City were given 5000-1 odds to win the league. Even those odds seemed to make light of their situation, but in spite of it all they became Premier League champions this week with an unlikely campaign led by a former blue collar worker.
His name is Jamie Vardy. He grew up in Sheffield, South Yorkshire in England, playing football. At 16, rejected by his hometown Sheffield United FC, he started working for a carbon fiber factory.
Jamie Vardy might not have imagined what destiny had in store for him back then, that his life would change completely. Vardy grew up the son of a crane operator and a secretary. When he wasn’t at work at the factory, he played for Stocksbridge Park Steels in the ninth division of English Soccer. He received about 30 pounds per week.
His story begun to change back in 2010, when he transfered from ninth to eighth division in order to play for Halifax Town. Two years later, he moved to the fifth division with Fleetwood Town. In 2012, he led the team to the podium, was elected best player of the competition and was purchased for 1 million pounds for Leicester. There his career begun to blossom.
At that time, Leicester competed in the Championship, the second division of English football, and fought for a place in the Premier League, the top division. They accomplish this feat in 2014.
In Vardy’s first season in the Premier League, 2014-2015, Leicester were almost demoted. When Italian coach Claudio Ranieri, 64, took over the team in 2015, things began to turn around. There was Vardy, at the right place at the right time.
Photo: @BBCSport | Twitter
In his second attempt in the league, Vardy broke the record for goals in consecutive league matches, maintained by Van Nistelrooy since 2003. He scored 13 times in 11 straight games.
The life of the quiet city of Leicester City was also about to change, driven by the good soccer presented by the main soccer team of the city. Small Leicester City beat out giants like Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City, who had a monopoly of the Premier League since it was created in 1992.
Leicester won the league while they weren’t playing when Tottenham, second in the league, tied 2-2 with Chelsea, last year's champion.
Leicester City’s win surprised not only fans of the sport, media, and gamblers, but the team itself, which started the season merely trying to avoid relegation. None the less, they were happy with their victory in the Premier League.
Leicester City has a modest payroll for the league's standards: a quarter of what Chelsea had when it won the title last season. Vardy’s salary is 40 thousand pounds a week, compared to 260,000 pounds received by Wayne Rooney from Manchester United - the highest paid in the league.
Leicester City’s amazing victory was even celebrated by the prime minister David Cameron, who congratulated the team on his twitter account.
Here we celebrate their victory with a vídeo showing one of the best goals scored by Vardy this season.
