Leicester City were supposed to go down last year. For 29 games, they simply weren’t Premier League quality. They only won 20 points from those 29 games, and of the 8 previous teams to do so before them, all 8 finished at the very bottom of the table.
Those pitiful teams went through the full spectrum of emotion that goes along with not just losing, but being the worst: they felt doubt, hate, and despair. They doubted their own abilities as players. They hated themselves and their teammates for constantly losing. And they felt despair, because it seemed so apparent that they would never be good enough.
Leicester likely felt all three of these things as they plodded through those first 29 games of the season in 2014-2015; they had only won 4 times through that point for Christ’s sake. But they turned it all around.
They went on to win an absolutely unbelievable 7 of their last 9 league games. It was stunning, nothing less than a miracle.
I choose to believe that before that stunning run was set in motion, then-manager Nigel Pearson sat his team down in the locker room and gave the speech of all speeches. Something that made motivation seem like the promised land. Something that made the team realize that it could enter into some ethereal plane of accomplishment that no one in the world could match. Something like this:
Of all the videos you might watch today, make sure this clip from Any Given Sunday is one of them.
Leicester, down on its luck, seemingly destined to never be able to compete with the best, to wallow in almost-there-ness, did nothing less than pull off the prohibitively improbable last year. They proved everyone wrong, and this year they seem intent on doing the same.
Leicester, as of September 4th 2015 sits in 3rd place in the Premier League. They won’t stay there; no one expects them to. But, g** dammit, are they doing their best to make everyone doubt their expectations.
37 - Leicester have scored 37 PL goals in 2015. Only Man City (52), Arsenal (40) and Chelsea (38) have more this year. Foxtrot.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 2, 2015Leicester City, in their current form, can qualify for the Europa League. It won’t be easy, or likely, but it is possible. They have seemingly replaced the lost leadership of Estaban Cambiasso from last year. They have flourished under new manager Claudio Ranieri. They are somehow being mentioned in the same sentence as Manchester City, Arsenal, and Chelsea. This is not scientific or analytical, it is a gut feeling based off the fact that this team is somehow one of the surest bets to stay up in the league after being one of the surest bets to drop less than 6 months ago, and that that accomplishment has changed this team into one of the hottest teams in the league.
Only time will tell how long that heat can keep this team going, but if Al Pacino is anyone to go by, Leicester will fight to get every inch out of it.
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