Leicester City have won the English Premier League.

[rosac]

I know most of you have no idea what this means but-

What a time to be alive.

Everyone, you're all invited, bring your vodka and your Charlie cos Jamie Vardy's having a f*cking party.


To put this into context, this has got to be one of the biggest upsets in sport in a long time. leicester were nearly relegated last season but thanks to Claudio Ranieri, Jamie Vardy (the face of a million memes), Riyad Mahrez, Ngolo Kante and Kasper Schmeikel, let alone the rest of the team, they will be lifting one of the most prestigious sporting trophies in the world.

Pretty much the whole of the UK that follows football (and isn;t a spurs fan) is going to celebrate this.

My god.


To make conversation, when was the last time a sporing achievement brought a country together? Other than this I think Team GBs performance in London really got the UK going (especially Yorkshire, who would have come above Australia in the medals table


EDIT: Here is Leicester celebrating https://twitter.com/FuchsOfficial?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

EDIT #2- More celebrations https://www.facebook.com/www.JOE.co.uk/videos/667017583462311/

 

[tippy2k2]

For those of us who are American, the best analogy I could come up with was think of the 0-17 Detroit Lions in football. Now imagine that they went 17-0 the next year and won the Superbowl. That's slightly less impressive than what Leicester City just did.

I don't follow soccer as much as I"d like to (it's a pain in the ass to be able to watch here in America though my state of Minnesota is getting a MLS team so I'm hoping that will help) but that is one hell of an achievement.

As to a sport uniting America, I think every year the Superbowl might be the best example. You can't escape it even if you wanted to and just about everyone participates in some way, shape or form (whether it's for the game, the commercials, or the Halftime show). While there are certainly people who pay no attention, I think it would be difficult to find people who have zero plans or interest in anything Superbowl related come February.

 

[Parasondox]

The will certainly be a bad and cheesy Hollywood movie.

Sports movie (movie sports?) Fans will love this. The story of the Underdog with a small Stadium, in a small town with such bad luck in the past 10 years. Big money was ruining the beautiful game but this small team did what many couldn't. Became a team. Like how Germany destroyed Brazil in the World Cup. You can have your star multi million pound player who everyone has to pass the ball too but if you have 11 players working together and reading one another in perfect synch, then guess who will come out on top?

And I bear the betting companies are losing a lot of money over this.

FUCKING BEAUTIFUL, I say. Fucking beautiful!!

 

[JaKandDaxter]

While I don't follow the premier league and other european or american football clubs. I do understand in the premier league, that teams like Manchester City, Chelsea, Man United, and Arsenal to a somewhat lower extent dominate that league. And put up huge amounts of money to buy off and sign many of the best players in the world. So the PL is highly competitive in the sense that the mega teams per se, usually win it all in the end. Unlike a sport like American baseball where small market teams with great farm systems, destroy high budget teams like the LA Dodgers in the playoffs.

So I'm very happy for Leicester City. Perhaps more smaller market teams in the PL can be inspired that they can still beat a Man City if they don't beat themselves up. And give their A game for all 90+ minutes.

 

[Tiger King]

It's madness! I want to say that it's because the bigger teams in the league, what is usually referred to as the top for, have been pretty awful.
But that's taking away from this monumental achievement which Leicester have fully earned.

For those of us who are American, the best analogy I could come up with was think of the 0-17 Detroit Lions in football. Now imagine that they went 17-0 the next year and won the Superbowl. That's slightly less impressive than what Leicester City just did.

I don't follow soccer as much as I"d like to (it's a pain in the ass to be able to watch here in America though my state of Minnesota is getting a MLS team so I'm hoping that will help) but that is one hell of an achievement.

As to a sport uniting America, I think every year the Superbowl might be the best example. You can't escape it even if you wanted to and just about everyone participates in some way, shape or form (whether it's for the game, the commercials, or the Halftime show). While there are certainly people who pay no attention, I think it would be difficult to find people who have zero plans or interest in anything Superbowl related come February.

I was in San francisco for the super bowl, I don't really understand how the game works but it's a great social event and the atmosphere was good.

 

[Lightspeaker]

For those of us who are American, the best analogy I could come up with was think of the 0-17 Detroit Lions in football. Now imagine that they went 17-0 the next year and won the Superbowl. That's slightly less impressive than what Leicester City just did.

Possibly a lot less impressive given that Leicester was in Division 1 just a few seasons ago.

An analogy for Americans on the BBC put it as something along the lines of: imagine a Class AA Baseball team somehow making it up to the Major League and winning the World Series all within eight seasons.


Anyway I'm absolutely delighted. Its fantastic to see the league being shaken up this way. Football has needed a good breath of fresh air for a while now and Leicester has definitely delivered. Good for them.

Though the Spurs fans I know definitely aren't quite so pleased with it as everyone else seems to be. :3

 

[Guffe]

LEICESTEEEEERRR!!!!

Hi there!
Yeah it was a crazy season all over in the PL, everyone playing really rnadomly and Chelsea started their first half of the season in the releegation zone!
Maqnagers have come and gone (as always).

But yeah, Leicester won the league!! Who would've thought!?!?!!!

For anyone interested in the PremierLeague there's a usergroup called "Barclays Premier League"
Come there and chat up! We need more people

 

[CeeBod]

I'm utterly stunned by Leicester doing this. They were 5,000 to 1 outsiders at the start of the year! To put that into some context, here are some other long-odds bets:

Odds of a Flying Saucer showing up during the Olympics opening ceremony 1,000:1
Odds of Hugh Hefner revealing he's actually still a virgin 1,000:1
Arsenal to sack Arsene Wenger and install Piers Morgan as manager 2,500:1
Yeti or Lock Ness Monster being proved to be real 5,000 to 1
Elvis being found alive 5,000 to 1

So yeah this isn't just an unlikely underdog story, this is Elvis found alive unlikely! That leads to an interesting question about Leicester's squad for next year - which position will Elvis play in next year when he inevitably turns up to play for them? I'd play him at left back, but that only cos I give no Fuchs! )

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Claudio Ranieri, Jamie Vardy (the face of a million memes), Riyad Mahrez, Ngolo Kante and Kasper Schmeikel

Is a silly name a prerequisite to becoming a football player or just a perk/side-effect?

 

[rosac]

Claudio Ranieri, Jamie Vardy (the face of a million memes), Riyad Mahrez, Ngolo Kante and Kasper Schmeikel

Is a silly name a prerequisite to becoming a football player or just a perk/side-effect?

Eh? Unless they went via deed poll they don't have much say in the matter! Add in that they're all different nationalities and there's likely to be some names that seem silly to Westerners.

OT: Still buzzing. All that needs to happen now is Newcastle to stay up, come on Rafa you beautiful bloke, and thank you tottenham for going a bit mad and having 2 players banned

 

[SirDeadly]

It was an amazing season for Leicester, I didn't give them much chance of continuing their early season form but they certainly proved me wrong. Hopefully this makes Wenger actually sign some players for Arsenal this season!

As to bringing the country together, in Australia the AFL grand final is massive every year. Two of the last three seasons have seen the Nullarbor Plain turn into highways as people make the trip from Perth to Melbourne.

 

[Hawki]

The will certainly be a bad and cheesy Hollywood movie.

Sports movie (movie sports?) Fans will love this. The story of the Underdog with a small Stadium, in a small town with such bad luck in the past 10 years. Big money was ruining the beautiful game but this small team did what many couldn't. Became a team. Like how Germany destroyed Brazil in the World Cup. You can have your star multi million pound player who everyone has to pass the ball too but if you have 11 players working together and reading one another in perfect synch, then guess who will come out on top?

And I bear the betting companies are losing a lot of money over this.

FUCKING BEAUTIFUL, I say. Fucking beautiful!!

As someone who saw and enjoyed (cheese aside) Eddie the Eagle recently, and loved Little Giants back in the 90s, the more movies like this the better, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Dornedas]

Well that's nice for you Britbongs.
Sounds like there is at least some excitement in your league.
We don't have that here in Germany anymore.

 

[doggy go 7]

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.

.

.

Just to reiterate Guffe's post, we have a premier league (but really just a football with focus on England) user group to satiate all your desires to speak about footy (we don't bite I promise).

But yeah, it's hard to explain to Americans who don't follow football just what this means (becuase of the draft and you guys not having promotion and relegation), but I think it could be close to a country like Andorra showing up to the olympics and then beating the US, Russia and China combined in the medals table, at least in terms of how unlikely it is.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Yeah, it might legitimately be one of the greatest sporting achievements of all time.

There can be great one-off event sporting achievements, or great runs in cups/tournaments, but for a team so unfancied that their manager was odds-on to be sacked first, and they were expected to be relegated is just utterly unthinkable. Hollywood couldn't come up with an underdog story like this unlikely.

 

[Catfood220]

The will certainly be a bad and cheesy Hollywood movie.

I don't think it would have to be cheesy, I mean none of the characters are lovable plucky children. I reckon something more along the lines of "The Damned United" would be more reasonable. It could start about halfway through the last season where they were bottom of the table and staring relegation in the face. Then chart their remarkable comeback before being dragged back down by the behaviour of some of their players last summer. Then going onto this season.

It could work and not be cheesy.

But yes, well done Leicester City.

And to third what Guffe and doggy go 7 have said, people interested in football should join the Barclays Premier League group, we need some more people to help balance out the sheer number of Liverpool fans