Foxes past, present and unpurchased: A Leicester City fans’ guide to every squad at Euro 2024
How Leicester-adjacent are the 24 nations competing at this summer’s Euro 2024 tournament in Germany?
Ahead of tonight’s big kick-off, let’s look at some Foxes past and present - and a few of those who got away…
Albania
In the summer of 2022, Leicester were linked with a move for Chelsea forward Armando Broja. He stayed at Stamford Bridge, had an unremarkable loan spell at Fulham in the second half of last season and now looks set for a move away - so is unlikely to work much with new Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca…
Austria
Leicester have no current or past players in the Austrian squad although legend Christian Fuchs and loanee Aleksandar Dragovic have both represented the Austrians in the past.
Dragovic, now 33, last played for his country two years ago and has spent the past three years at Red Star Belgrade but will be a free agent this summer.
Belgium
We have a player in the squad! Wout Faes makes the Belgium squad and will be looking to impress, given he sees a good tournament as a chance to upgrade on us.
Elsewhere, former Foxes Timothy Castagne and Youri Tielemans will be readying themselves for a mixed reception when visiting again with Fulham and Aston Villa next season.
Leicester were linked on more than one occasion with Charles De Ketelaere, who ended up winning the Europa League on loan with Atalanta this summer alongside the notoriously unsigned Ademola Lookman.
Croatia
When Hoffenheim signed Andrej Kramaric from us on an initial loan in 2016, it’s hard to know whether they thought he’d still be there 8 years later. He now has more Bundesliga goals than any other Croatian and this will be his sixth major tournament for his country.
Two years ago, it was Dominik Livakovic who was mentioned as a possible Kasper Schmeichel replacement. Possibly would have been a better option than what we ended up with…
Czechia
We’ve been tentatively linked with Adam Hložek this summer - an attacking player for all-conquering Bayer Leverkusen. It was billed as a race for Hložek between us and Red Bull Leeds, but the trail has gone cold in the last few weeks as we’ve prioritised a new manager, or a new kit, or organising some friendlies, or whatever it is we’ve got up our sleeve.
Denmark
We have a player in the squad! And another one! And another one! Denmark have packed themselves with Leicester City interest.
Mads Hermansen will presumably spend the entirety of the summer on the bench but must be eyeing up the number one shirt for future tournaments.
A man none of us ever doubted, Jannik Vestergaard, will surely be taking it easy in anticipation of lasting another three years at the top level.
Then there’s Victor Kristiansen, a key player at left-back for the Danes. But will Bologna come back with the readies or will VK still be blue by the end of the transfer window?
One of our all-time greats, Kasper Schmeichel is still holding off Mads between the sticks for now. We’ve also been linked in the past with Morten Hjulmand, then of Lecce and now of Sporting Clube de Portugal, and Mikkel Damsgaard, then of Sampdoria and now of Brentford.
England
It took two or three scans of the England squad to recall that Harry Kane is, of course, an ex-Fox. At least he won’t be scoring past us in the Premier League next season. He might score past Kasper again this summer though.
No place for “Madders”, or Harvey Barnes, or Ben Chilwell, or the injured Harry Maguire.
Other current England players we’ve been linked with in the past include Cole Palmer, who didn’t arrive on loan last summer and ended up costing Chelsea £45million and taking the top flight by storm. Dodged a bullet there. Lewis Dunk was touted as a Harry Maguire replacement a few years back, while Jarrod Bowen was allegedly a target in 2019 but instead went to West Ham from Hull - one that got away while we messed about signing endless right wingers on loan.
France
N’Golo Kanté has recently been recalled to the French squad by Didier Deschamps despite being 33 years old and playing in Saudi.
Another name that came up during The Great Goalkeeper Search of 2022 was Brice Samba, who’d only just joined Lens from Notts Forest and is still there now.
Georgia
Initially, this was going to be a hugely tenuous fact that Giorgi Chakvetadze played against us twice for Watford last season - but we have been linked to a Georgian before. And yes, it was during The Great Goalkeeper Search of 2022. Giorgi Mamardashvili stayed at Valencia, where he was hugely impressive last season.
Germany
Central defender Jonathan Tah was a name that cropped up a lot in 2022. He stayed with Bayer Leverkusen, was massively influential in their remarkable 2023/24 season and now appears about to be mopped up by Bayern Munich to try to stop that silliness happening again.
Hungary
Another name from 2022 and another centre-back. Attila Szalai was at Fenerbahce that summer. The following year, he moved to Hoffenheim. He scored an own goal in a defeat on his debut against Freiburg.
This made such an impression on Freiburg that during the return fixture four months later, they gave him a loan contract to sign while he was sitting on Hoffenheim’s bench wearing a Hoffenheim shirt. So says Wikipedia anyway.
Italy
We’re back with The Great Goalkeeper Search of 2022, when Napoli’s Alex Meret was apparently another option.
Six months earlier, Meret had been in goal for Napoli on the infamous night of the 36-hour bus trip and Brendan Rodgers saying he didn’t know what a “Europa Conference League” was.
Netherlands
Back in his Chelsea and Bournemouth days, Nathan Aké was a regular name among Leicester City’s transfer rumours. He was mooted as a possible Harry Maguire replacement in August 2019.
A Sky Sports report from back then states, with a straight face, “Leicester will not sign Nathan Aké in this transfer window, with Bournemouth valuing the defender at more than £75m.” Good job we’re careful about our finances.
Poland
In our desperate bid to recruit the entire Southampton backline from the 9-0, we apparently wanted Jan Bednarek to go with Jannik Vestergaard and Ryan Bertrand. Why we didn’t also go in for Maya Yoshida and Yann Valery is a mystery.
There were also reports way back in December 2009 that we were interested in a certain Lech Poznań forward by the name of Robert Lewandowski to come and play in Nigel Pearson’s Championship side. Might have worked.
Portugal
In the summer of 2021, with solidity needed in midfield, one name that arose was Joao Palhinha. He subsequently went to Fulham instead where he established himself as a reliable Premier League performer. We went with Boubakary Soumare…
Sky Sports reported in 2019 that Portugal coach Roberto Martinez, then in charge of Belgium, was on our shortlist to replace Claude Puel - although he apparently wasn’t interested.
Romania
There is no evidence that Leicester City have ever been linked with a current Romanian international. We did have former Romanian youth international Alex Pascanu on our books for a very long period. He’s just spent the season on loan with Spanish second division club Sporting Gijón but didn’t make Romania’s squad.
Neil Lennon has just been named the new manager of Rapid Bucharest, who we played at Filbert Street in a 1994 pre-season friendly, if that’s of interest.
Scotland
Various Scots have been linked with moves to Leicester over the years, most notably Leicester-born ex-St Andrews and Oadby Town striker Ché Adams. The Rodgers connection also saw the likes of James Forrest and Callum McGregor mentioned in the past.
Recently, we’ve been rumoured to be interested in Bristol City striker Tommy Conway.
The best Leicester-Scotland link from last season has to be the fact Scottish centre-back Ryan Porteous went in goal against us after Daniel Bachmann’s sending off last November. Porteous joins an illustrious list of names to concede a goal to Jamie Vardy.
Serbia
Two of Serbia’s star names have appeared in the Leicester rumour mill - Dušan Tadić was suggested as a Mahrez replacement in 2018, while Luka Jović was mentioned in dispatches in 2020 as a strike partner for Vardy.
Slovakia
In one of the more outlandish rumours of recent years, Slovakian defender Dávid Hancko of Feyenoord was recently said to be of interest. As much as Leicester City are the greatest football team the world has ever seen, he’s possibly a bit out of our league and probably on the way somewhere like Liverpool instead.
Slovenia
When Leicester wanted to build on the greatest sporting story of all time, there were several players who could have signed up for life on Filbert Way. The names of Troy Deeney and Gylfi Sigurdsson surfaced a lot. So did Josip Iličić, who instead moved to Atalanta a year later and is now - at the age of 36 - back in his homeland with Maribor.
Spain
Ayoze Pérez! It will be fascinating to see whether Ayoze gets any playing time this summer. He’s enjoyed a fine season with Real Betis and has even been linked with a move to Barcelona this summer.
Switzerland
Another name conjured as a possible replacement for Riyad Mahrez was then Stoke winger Xherdan Shaqiri. He opted for Liverpool in the summer of 2018 and now plays in the MLS for Chicago Fire.
Turkey
We have a player in the squad! Well, kind of. Okay, maybe not really. But our social media manager is still claiming Yunus Akgün as one of our own, even if we sent him packing back to Galatasaray a few weeks ago.
It’s probable that Turkey coach Vincenzo Montella had a hand in the deal to bring Yunus to Leicester, having just coached him at Adana Demirspor and being good friends with Enzo Maresca.
Sadly, there’s no summer appearance for Çağlar Söyüncü who has a thigh muscle injury. No place either for his best mate Cengiz Ünder.
In summer 2022 we were mentioned as a possible destination for midfielder Orkun Kökçü, then of Feyenoord and now of Benfica. Merih Demiral’s name often came up too in a possible pairing with Cags. He bounced around Serie A for a bit but is now in Saudi.
Ukraine
We end where we began, with a really tenuous link to a player we were probably never that interested in or who never wanted to come to us. In summer 2022, it was Ruslan Malinovskyi who “favoured a move to London” above the attractions of Leicester.
He stayed at Atalanta for a year and has since then signed on loan and then permanently at Marseille, where he signed on loan and then permanently at Genoa. And all that time he could have been living it up in Leicester rather than lounging by the Mediterranean…
Over to you
Have we missed anyone? Let us know in the comments!
