Leicester City: From rejects to English Premier League champions They were a team of cast-offs and bargain buys written off before the season had started, led by a manager who had been sacked in five of his previous jobs.
Leicester City: From rejects to English Premier League champions They were a team of cast-offs and bargain buys written off before the season had started, led by a manager who had been sacked in five of his previous jobs.
But Leicester’s squad of freebies and unknown imports has shocked the football world with their Premier League triumph, becoming household names and full-fledged international stars along the way.
In August, just weeks after Leicester had escaped demotion from the Premier League where it had spent most of the year 20th out of 20, you would have got better odds on Kim Kardashian becoming president of the US by 2020.
Leicester’s preferred starting XI cost just $32 million, which must make accountants of the Premier League’s biggest clubs who have spent millions on star players green with envy.
Money may talk very loudly in the Premier League, but it clearly doesn’t say everything.
Leicester’s quality, team spirit and togetherness, along with the astute managerial capabilities of Claudio Ranieri, are at the heart of the success story.
The team has been pretty much unstoppable since the first game of April when – stuck at the bottom of the league table, let’s remember – it beat West Ham 2-1 at their home King Power Stadium for a first victory in nine attempts. That win turned out to be the cue for an incredible lift-off. The Foxes have lost only twice in the 24 games that have followed.
And if you take a look across Europe’s top leagues, only Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich have collected more points than Leicester in that time. Over those games, Leicester have scored 53 goals.
They are the first team outside of London or Manchester to win the league, since Blackburn in 1995.
Leicester had a total of 41 points at the end of last season, 35 less than what they now have with two games to spare.
Speechless as the world has been left, one can’t help but make way for the most deserving champions. No one in history has beaten odds so much against them.
A seven-year-old girl who was born without hands has won a national US handwriting award.
Anaya Ellick, from Virginia, beat 50 other youngsters from around the country to win the contest.
Instead of opting for prosthetic limbs to help grip the pen, Anaya uses only her forearms to write.
Anaya’s penmanship was submitted in the category that encourages the participation of students with cognitive delays, or intellectual, physical or developmental disabilities. This category is judged by a team of occupational therapists, and the winner is awarded the Nicholas Maxim Special Award for Excellence in Penmanship.
Anaya’s mother, Bianca Middleton, says her daughter is an inspiration. “I look at her and I’m like, wow!” she said. “She’s not complaining; she never complains.”
