Top 100 momentsNo. 30
Leicester City, 5,000 to 1
A club that started the season as a relegation story wins the Premier League. Modern soccer’s money table gets one result it cannot explain.
Leicester City begin 2015-16 as a 5,000-to-1 shot to win the Premier League. They have just avoided relegation. Claudio Ranieri is the manager people hired as a nice man, not a miracle. Jamie Vardy scores in 11 straight. Riyad Mahrez floats. The big six wait for the collapse. It does not arrive.
On May 2, with Tottenham dropping points at Chelsea, Leicester are champions. A city that does not usually close for soccer closes. Modern English football had become a table of TV money and the same names. This season is the glitch.
It has not happened again. That is why it stays in the top thirty. The sport’s economics say it should be impossible. For ten months it wasn’t. Bookmakers still put the number on souvenirs.