“Why do we always fall in love?” - A magic moment in Leicester City time before it passes
Tonight, Leicester City head to The Den with another three vital points at stake and the narrative will move on. But sometimes you have to revel in a moment while you still can.
Easter Sunday
I’m at a gig and someone I vaguely know comes up to me, leans in and asks, “Why do we always fall in love?”
Having anticipated something more along the lines of “How are you?”, I hesitate.
“Sorry?”
He repeats, “Why do we always fall in love?”
I look to the left, to my brother, to see if it’s a joke I’m not getting.
“He said: ‘Why are the wheels falling off?’ I think it’s something to do with football?”
Easter Monday
I’m at the King Power Stadium. Norwich at home. It’s a big game, it’s crucial that we win, but I’m feeling a bit flat.
I turn to the guy in the seat behind mine, ask how he’s feeling about the game.
“A bit flat, if I’m honest.”
Defeat on Good Friday had done it to us both, and plenty more like us. It felt, yes, like the wheels were falling off. “We’re done” - two words I’d read in more than one Leicester-related WhatsApp group over the Easter weekend.
After all that, one clever corner routine might have felt like the end was nigh had Leicester City not started that game like they meant business at last. The pace was up, the crowd was, if not up then at least not quite as deathly quiet as usual, and soon the ball was in the net at the other end.
And although there was the odd lull and the odd half-chance for the visitors, it never truly felt to me, the eternal pessimist, that Leicester wouldn’t win that game. We looked a bit different, with a bit of edge to us, like someone had flicked a switch.
Maybe Enzo had said something or tweaked a tactic. Perhaps the away end’s reaction to the final whistle at Ashton Gate had an effect on the players. Whatever the reason, Leicester looked to have shaken off the malaise that had set in. Of course, it might just be that this time we took our chances.
The following Saturday
I’m in the Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha memorial garden. It’s my first time here. It’s beautifully done, a simple idea executed really nicely and thoughtfully. I take a couple of photos, wander around a bit, soaking up what feels like the first warming sun of the year. I’m watching the East Anglian derby on my mate’s phone. Norwich hold a one-goal lead until the final moments, into Ipswich time, when the inevitable is bound to happen. But it doesn’t, and I find myself swearing in delight in the memorial garden. Hopefully Vichai would understand.
So I’m the opposite of flat making my way into the ground, politely declining the offer of a clapper, deciding against the concourse food despite having missed lunch, climbing the steps: I’m a big round ball of anticipation. What an opportunity.
I love that part of the day, navigating my way through the concourse and wondering how everyone else in there is feeling. Not about the clappers or the food but the bigger picture. Are they tense? Are they excited? Are they absolutely dreading the next couple of hours? Nobody is feeling flat after two favours from Norwich - a dismal performance against us and a rousing one against Ipswich.
One of the many great things about football is that just when you think you’ve figured it out, it takes you completely by surprise. That happens a few moments before half time when a comfortable lead heading into the break is wiped out by one of those freak goals that I always worry will happen to Leicester.
This isn’t even an Enzoball or Hermansen-related anxiety. Whenever I watched Kasper Schmeichel bounce the ball at his feet before launching it downfield, I had this horrible feeling he’d bounce it against his own toe and I’d have to watch as it landed straight at the feet of an opposition striker.
It never happened to him, and it’s probably never happened to any goalkeeper, but it always felt like a perfectly plausible thing that could happen to Leicester City at any stage. Yet despite always idly worrying about the vague prospect of conceding out of nowhere, I didn’t really think what happened to Hermansen in that moment would actually transpire. It’s a bolt from the blue and changes the mood instantaneously.
The game wears on and Leicester are proving me right. There’s a lack of invention. Ipswich would have scored by now. Yeah, alright, they didn’t earlier. Leeds would have scored by now. Well, okay, they’re losing at the moment. Don’t try to rationalise this.
You can lose yourself in football. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in your life - at the most crucial times in games, in seasons, it takes over everything else. Outside of that week’s 90 minutes, that can be a bad thing, obsessing over missed opportunities or rivals’ chances. It’s definitely been a bad thing over the past few weeks as we’ve tried to make sense of the slow drip feed of news.
This financial scenario is being played out in slow motion against the non-stop nature of life in the Football League, when as soon as one game ends it’s time for a pre-match press conference. The 90 minutes of Leicester City on the pitch are only giving respite from every other minute digesting Leicester City off the pitch.
It’s made a lot of us question how we view the club in lots of different ways. Made us question a lot of decisions and a lot of people.
But in the 87th minute, we’re not thinking about why Brendan Rodgers signed Jannik Vestergaard or why Torino have never got round to signing Dennis Praet or why we have a multi-million pound option on Yunus Akgun. The need for these players to conjure something overrides all of the pondering we’ve done over fees and wages over the past few weeks. We just need them to work together to move the ball the other side of a white line.
Gloriously, they do it. Proving me wrong, beautifully. Vestergaard strides through the centre of the pitch and lays it off to Praet, who pushes it wide to Yunus, who chips it to the back post.
Nobody has proven me wrong more effectively than Stephy Mavididi in the past week. Not having him down as a finisher or someone who can provide big moments, he’s done it twice in the space of a few days to turn two points into six and take Leicester City to the top of the league. Mavididi nods the ball over the line and suddenly there are bodies piling down the aisles in the Kop. A sight we’ve got used to seeing at Portman Road and Elland Road. It turns out our players and our fans are capable of producing these scenes too.
One more thing about football. When that moment hits and your limbs fly out in every different direction and you’re not even aware of what’s happening on the pitch any more because in that moment, it doesn’t matter. It turns out that what happened was Jannik Vestergaard performed a sweeping arc of one corner of the ground while Mavididi and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall set off to the other corner in front of the Kop. Players heading off in different directions like the limbs we’re flailing around in wild celebration. Suddenly, we’re all as one again.
Maybe “why do we always fall in love?” was the right question after all. It’s for moments like this.
