A five-point lead. With eight games to play. That’s where Leicester City stands after a 1-0 win over Newcastle on Monday night kept it on course toward its improbable English Premier League title.Like so much about the Foxes’ season, the win was decided by a moment of magic, Japanese Shinji Okazaki‘s overhead kick.

For former English star Gary Lineker, now Englishtelevision’s leading soccer pundit, the Leicester City story is personal. He supported the Foxes as a child, crying all the way home with his father and grandfather after attending the 1969 FA Cupfinal they lost, played for them, and later helped keep them afloat.

Like Leicester City fans, Lineker considered the Foxes lucky to avoid relegation last season and was hardly impressedby the decision to bring in Italian Claudio Ranieri as manager. Now?

“What we are witnessing,” Lineker wrote in a column he penned for the Guardian, “should Leicester go on to win the title, isquite possibly the most unlikely triumph in the history of team sport. A collection of individuals who couldn’t win a football match for love nor money a year ago have turned into an invincibleforce. A team with a spirit and togetherness the like of which the game has seldom seen. All beautifully held together by the canny, inspirational — yes, inspirational — Tinkerman.”

There are few American comparisons to Leicester City. The New York Mets of 1969 come to mind: lovable losers who became World Series champions. Everything that could go right went right, in theregular season when they won both games of a September doubleheader by scores of 1-0 thanks to RBI by the starting pitchers, and in the World Series when the tying run in Game 5 was scored aftermanager Gil Hodges pulled out a ball smudged with shoe polish to convince the umpire that the batter Cleon Jones  had been hit by the pitch.

Most Leicester supporters wonderwhen Foxes will collapse. One of the most fascinating parts of SI.com’s Grant Wahl‘s meeting with apair of American Leicester City fans, Rocky Fox and Kat Morgan was the disconnect between how they and locals view the Foxes’ chances.

“The feeling in Leicesterisn’t what it would be in the States if you had a team doing this,” Morgan said. “Everybody’s watching and waiting. Nobody is expecting.”

Embed from Getty Images

The scheduleis on Leicester City’s side. The Foxes lead Tottenham by five points, Arsenal by 11 and Manchester City by 12, though the latter two have a game in hand. All three are still in Europe — or at leastbegan the week having the distraction of European campaigns.

None of Leicester City’s eight games are against teams in the top four, so the title’s Leicester City’s to lose.

Leicester City Schedule:
March 19 at Crystal Palace (15th)
April 3 vs. Southampton (7th)
April 10 atSunderland (17th)
April 17 vs. West Ham (5th)
April 24 vs. Swansea City (16th)
May 1 at Manchester United (6th)
May 7 vs. Everton (12th)
May 15 at Chelsea (10th)

Added Lineker, “The pressure will mount with every passing week. With expectation comes danger. They have, though, shown no fear thus far. No sign ofwavering under the magnitude of what they might achieve. They are on the edge of sporting immortality.”

Leave a comment