Before the miracle, the escape: When Leicester City started winning 10 years ago today
The seeds of the miracle of 2015/16 were sown four months before the season started, with the greatest escape - which began with a win over West Ham ten years ago today.
Here, we republish part of ‘The Greatest Escape’, a short eBook initially intended to capture the feeling among Leicester fans as their team was relegated.
What happened over the 13 months that followed was a little surprising.
Thursday 2nd April 2015
“I know we are bottom but it is still in our hands. It is difficult to say this when you are bottom but, when there are nine matches to go, it is a quarter of the season.
Everyone needs to understand this: the players, managers, supporters, the whole city. It is our nine cup finals for survival.
We can do it.
People always speak. It is free. You don’t need to pay to talk about football. I am a footballer, I don’t like to talk about medicine because I don’t know about it, but all people think they know about football.
The same people who are now saying ‘Leicester is dead’.
Maybe not if we win.
Players need to understand, it is just words.
The focus should be on the job - the pitch, the meetings and play.
The other things are not important.”
Esteban Cambiasso
Saturday 4th April 2015: Leicester City v West Ham United
Easter is here. The question is: can City resurrect their hopes of Premier League survival with the visit of ailing West Ham United?
Defeat in east London just before Christmas sent the Hammers into the festive period in the Champions League places, but they arrive in Leicester in poor form. There have long been question marks over the future of manager Sam Allardyce, while the injury-prone Andy Carroll, who scored the opening goal when the teams met in December, is predictably unavailable.
It feels like City’s chance, but we have been here before. Stoke felt like a chance, Hull even more so. Will this be any different?
The answer appears to be yes during an opening period in which Pearson’s troops pile forward menacingly. The breakthrough come when Esteban Cambiasso heads the ball forward and it returns to him via Nugent’s misplaced pass and West Ham defender James Collins’s back. Cambiasso waits patiently for the ball to drop and smashes it on the volley. It sails past the despairing dive of Adrian into the bottom corner.
It’s a magnificent strike on a weekend when the top flight arguably sees more of them than ever. Charlie Adam is inside his own half when he fires over Chelsea’s Thibaut Courtois at Stamford Bridge. Wayne Rooney scores a stupendous volley at Old Trafford. Bobby Zamora hits a beauty at The Hawthorns with the outside of his left foot. Jermain Defoe smashes the only goal of the game in the Tyne-Wear derby.
The only thing that really matters though is that City hold onto this lead. They don’t. In the midst of increasing pressure from the visitors, ball from the left arcs over Jeff Schlupp’s head for Cheikhou Kouyate to take on his chest and poke past Kasper Schmeichel into the far corner of the net.
The home side must do it all again, but the fans sense possibility and they back their team. The noise intensifies as they get closer and closer to what would be a crucial winning goal.
So it builds.
More noise.
More chances.
Kramaric comes off the bench and receives the ball in a fine position. He strikes the ball past Adrian and the crowd rises. It’s blocked on the line by a desperate lunge from a West Ham defender and the crowd slumps collectively to its seat. But the City fans rouse themselves again and the team respond. Maybe it’s the other way round.
The real moment of reckoning comes when good work down the right from Cambiasso and substitute Marc Albrighton creates an opening for Kramaric at the far post. He seems to stumble, but he digs the ball out from under his feet and works it into the middle for Jamie Vardy.
Adrian readies himself to gather Vardy’s shot but there is no way he can adjust quickly enough when Andy King’s outstretched boot diverts the path of the ball. There’s a man on the line again but he can do nothing about it either.
It’s a goal and City have scored it late enough to hang on. It’s a win. It’s an actual three-points, more-goals-than-the-opposition, hope-that-kills-you victory.
City need many more of these to even have a chance of avoiding the seemingly inevitable drop to the Championship.
Their next quest for three points takes them west to the Black Country.
Monday 6th April 2015
“The way they celebrated the goals - they’ve hardly ever won this season so I don’t think they’re playing in games thinking ‘we need to win or get points to stay up.’
I think realistically they probably all feel that the club are maybe, almost down, but they’re going to enjoy it when they get wins because they haven’t had too many this season.
Between now and the end of the season if they can get another couple of wins, it’s not going to make them safe but they can just enjoy some before, I think, eventually what happens…”
Jamie Carragher
