On April 13th 2015, Leicester City were bottom of the Premier League. Here we are, just a smidgeon over 12 months later, and they’ve just won the title.
I don’t know what word to use for this other than amazing. In all the years I’ve been watching football I’ve never seen a story like this before. It’s completely and utterly unprecedented. I think it defies any rational explanation. You can theorise and postulate till the cows come home, and I don’t think it’d make any difference.
It’s just a massively weird, freaky thing that happened this one time, and I can’t ever imagine it happening again. Which is to take nothing away from them or what they’ve done this season, but it’s just such a remarkable turnaround in fortunes that it defies any logic. Or logic as we thought we knew it, anyway.
I have to say I’m delighted for Claudio Ranieri, who has always seemed like a real gentleman. A slightly eccentric one too, but then there’s a genuine charm to him that’s very difficult not to warm to. He was shafted by Chelsea for one of the most appalling men to ever manage a football team, and although he had no reason to ever talk him down, Jose Mourinho did that anyway.
In 2008, when they clashed in Serie A, he said:
He is almost 70 years old. He has won a Supercup and another small trophy and he is too old to change his mentality. He’s old and he hasn’t won anything. I studied Italian five hours a day for many months to ensure I could communicate with the players, media and fans. Ranieri had been in England for five years and still struggled to say ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon.’
I suspect there are some things in English that Ranieri could say this morning if he really felt like it, but he won’t. His team, 5000-1 for the title at the start of this season, with him the overwhelming favourite to be the first manager sacked, are champions. They’ve only lost three games all season – and how typical is it that two of them were to us?! – and you can’t say anything other than congratulations to them, and that they and the fans should enjoy the absolute shit out of it.
And as freaky and all as it is, it’s fantastic to see that football can still offer us up something that we never expected. It harks back to the 70s and what Brian Clough did at Nottingham Forest, achievements that bordered on the bizarre at the time, but no less incredible because of that. However, this is a different era. Money speaks louder than ever. Oligarchs, petro-cash influxes, foreign investors, TV billions and commercial revenue, are supposed to be what dictates success and who can achieve it.
What Leicester have done this season smashes that small title-winning cartel right open and that’s a good thing. It has to be. I know that Arsenal fans will view this season through a prism of disappointment, but sometimes you have to step back and look at things from outside of that. Congratulating Leicester doesn’t excuse our own failings, it just means we’re capable of appreciating something a bit special.
Now, the way it was won adds a little bit extra to it from my point of view. Of course it would have been something if they’d won it under their own steam at Old Trafford, a late goal providing them the crowning glory, but it came down to last night’s game between Chelsea and Sp*rs. I opted not to watch from the start and when they led 2-0 at half-time I felt quite justified.
Gary Cahill got one back for Chelsea, so I turned on the last 20 minutes in hope rather than expectation. I was not disappointed. Eden Hazard has barely bothered his hole this season. He might as well have had ‘I don’t give a shit’ tattooed across his forehead, but his 83rd minute goal to make it 2-2 was really excellent. Spitefully good almost.
And a game which had already been fractious became even more so. What made it so funny was that Sp*rs still had 7 minutes of normal time, plus 6 minutes of injury time, to get a goal which would have kept their slim hopes alive. Instead, they just lost the plot completely, and it was gloriously, magnificently, rib-ticklingly hilarious.
9 yellow cards, eye-gouging, stamping, petulant mindless fouls, and more. A post-game melee which seemed to go on for ages, it was all in there, and it was so, so brilliant. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: part of what makes football so great is the ability to revel in the misery and dismay of others. The schadenfreude, the StefanFreunde, it was majestic – like a sweet delicious cherry on top of the icing on the cake.
If you missed it, it’s all here. Some will say it’s terrible to see footballers behave like that. It’s not what the game is about and it sets a bad example. I say, hahahahahahahahaha. MORE. Give them bats to set about each other with.
It’s Chelsea v Sp*rs, let them do each other damage I say, while we gaze on from a safe distance. Like Romans watching the bestiari in the Colosseum, washing it all down with goblets of wine and then having a cheese orgy or something. I know our season was a huge disappointment, but if you can’t enjoy what happened last night then you’re dead inside.
Anyway, here we are. Leicester City are Premier League champions. What a thing. I’m sticking a fiver on Ireland for the European Championships. Hey, you just never know!
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James and I did manage to record the Arsecast Extra yesterday evening. Unfortunately before the ructions at Stamdford Bridge, but hey. We talked about the Norwich game, the performance, the protests, the reaction to it and all the rest, and answered listeners questions about many things like football, other football, zombie babies and more. Listen/download here.
Download – iTunes – Acast – RSS
Right, that’s your lot for now. News throughout the day over on Arseblog News. I’m back tomorrow.
