Rain check on reality: Leicester City again find themselves rubbing shoulders with giants

Leicester City's Marc Albrighton, centre, celebrates scoring their second goal against Sevilla on Wednesday during their Uefa Champions League match at the King Power Stadium on March 14, 2017. Oli ScShow more

As Leicester’s players, some euphoric, some seemingly stunned by their success, were trying to digest their achievement, the draw for the Uefa Champions League quarter-finals was taking shape. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund were already there. They were joined by Juventus, completing a quintet with the small matter of 24 European Cups between them.

Oh, and Leicester City, three-time League Cup winners, seven-time champions of England’s second flight and once of its third, triumphant in one Community Shield they did not actually qualify for and victors of the 1941 Football League War Cup.

Plus, of course, the 2016 Premier League title.

If it was incongruous to see Leicester in the Champions League to begin with, it is still odder to find them in the last eight.

“I can’t quite believe it,” said captain and goalscorer Wes Morgan. “I’m lost for words,” said Marc Albrighton, the other to find the net in the 2-0 win over Sevilla. “An unbelievable achievement,” said goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, who saved a penalty in each leg against the triple Europa League winners.

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Leicester find themselves rubbing shoulders with the superpowers, and the superpowers are recoiling from their touch.

“Who do I prefer not to play? Leicester,” said Gianluigi Buffon, Juventus’s World Cup-winning goalkeeper showing he was worried about the upstarts from the East Midlands. “They are a dangerous and passionate team who can cause trouble for opponents who take the initiative. We would have everything to lose.”

It was a sign Leicester’s fear factor has returned. Their propensity to upset the established order propelled them to glory. Then the hunters became the hunted. Leicester were stalked by the Premier League’s lesser lights, subjected to chastening defeats. Workhorses were criticised for a lack of effort, a band of brothers scarcely seemed united and the inspiration for their title win seemed incapable of motivating his players.

It is clear that Claudio Ranieri’s sacking has had a transformative effect, and if it sticks in the craw the way many at Leicester seem to infer, the Italian was incidental to the most extraordinary title win in English football history.

A subsequent hat-trick of spirited victories under his interim successor Craig Shakespeare have brought echoes of last season. The formula of counter-attacking at speed and defending with resolve has been restored. Ten of the title-winners have been reunited and while Wilfried Ndidi is no replica of N’Golo Kante, his aerial ability at the base of the midfield has added solidity.

If this year seemed the unwelcome reality check, now a surreal element has been restored to Leicester’s story. The 15th best team in England, according to the standings, are now in the last eight in Europe.

The sheer improbability of it may mean some gloss over the skulduggery of Jamie Vardy, even if Samir Nasri’s dismissal was the product of his own idiocy, but Leicester’s rough edges always remained. Their rawness was part of their rise.

Wednesday marked the three-year anniversary of a 3-1 win over Blackpool in the Championship. Morgan scored that day, too. Schmeichel, Vardy, Danny Drinkwater and Riyad Mahrez also started both games. Tuesday’s elimination of Sevilla came eight years to the day after a 1-0 victory over Millwall in the third tier. Andy King, who was on the bench against Sevilla, played then.

Advance to the present and Leicester's unlikely lads have resumed their assault on football's usual suspects. Even after beating Sevilla, the statistical website FiveThirtyEight said they still have less than a 1 per cent chance of winning the Champions League.

But then they were the improbable outsiders who conquered the Premier League. Once again, the sense is that nothing is impossible.

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