Leicester City delivered a new entry into their list of unlikely success stories with a stunning victory over Sevilla at the King Power Stadium that takes them into the Champions League quarter-finals.
The club and team that makes a habit of turning logic on its head did it again as high-flying La Liga side’s 2-1 advantage from the first leg was overturned amid an atmosphere of passion and emotion that evoked memories of last season’s Premier League title win.
It was made all the more remarkable by the fact that three weeks ago, after that first game in Spain, Leicester sacked Claudio Ranieri, the man who masterminded that title triumph, amid tales of dressing-room discontent and fears of relegation.
When Leicester sacked Ranieri on 23 February, the Champions League was an afterthought set alongside fears the Foxes were on course to drop into the Championship.
They had dredged a creditable 2-1 loss out of a performance that was the final curtain for the popular Italian – but it was wider concerns that led to his dismissal.
The club’s Thai owners needed someone to rediscover the element that had been lost in the nine months since Leicester lifted the Premier League trophy in one of the greatest sporting stories ever told. They needed someone to keep them up, with any success in the Champions League falling into the category of added bonus.
They turned to Craig Shakespeare, who came to the club with Nigel Pearson and stayed on to ride shotgun to Ranieri in that dream season.
And, in an instant, the dial has been turned back. Shakespeare has restored this Leicester team to default, title-winning settings – and the transformation has been remarkable.
Shakespeare, in charge until the end of the season, has won three out of three. Impressive wins against Liverpool and Hull have soothed relegation fears but this win over Sevilla is the most compelling vindication of his methods. It was the kind of victory on which reputations are made and, in the case of Leicester’s players, revived.
He effectively restored the title team, with the obvious exception of Wilfred Ndidi for the departed N’Golo Kante, and ordered them to play in the same intense, counter-attacking manner – using the pace of Jamie Vardy and the creativity of Riyad Mahrez – that brought that success.
