Home   >   MOTDs   >   Glorious celebrations as Leicester crowned Prem champions

Glorious celebrations as Leicester crowned Prem champions

By on May 7, 2016

The camera shook and the King Power Stadium rumbled.  The camera panned to reveal the man of the moment, Claudio Ranieri, as chuffed as a father at a wedding.  Then Leicester City took the first kick of the ball as Premier League champions.

A little rain couldn’t dampen the celebrations as Leicester’s dream became reality and they finally lifted the Premier League trophy. It was a thoroughly monumental, jovial occasion.  A sea of blue scarves painted the stadium a brilliant blue, and as opera singer Andrea Bocelli belted out a tribute to Leicester before kickoff, an inflatable dinosaur bobbled across the crowd.

Both on the pitch and off the pitch, Leicester held the most gloriously bonkers party.  As far as once-in-a-lifetime sporting feats come, Ranieri joked that the celebrations “weren’t bad!”  Even the Italian manager could barely contain his giddy excitement.

“It’s fantastic. The people are unbelievable,” he said. “Thank you to them because they pushed us all season.

“I am a strange man.  There are a lot of cameras on me to see if I cry and then I say ‘today no’. I stayed there but inside the emotion was at the top.”

Leicester’s story, though, is most strange in a most wonderful fashion and their opponents of the day, Everton, obliged to the plot, succumbing to a 3-1 defeat.  Jamie Vardy, returning from suspension, bagged a brace and nearly had a hat-trick, but for a missed penalty.  Andy King also netted a goal of his own and Leicester had thirty-three shots, more than they have had in any other game this season.

As opposed to the defensive-oriented unit that captured the title, Ranieri let the belt loosen a little, tactically speaking, and Leicester dominated Everton with a free-flowing attacking extravaganza.

Riyad Mahrez spread havoc through Everton’s back-line on the right and, less than five minutes in, Leicester went roaring into the lead.  Mahrez threw the ball in from the right to Danny Drinkwater, who picked out Vardy’s near-post run with a gorgeous cross and the English forward coolly converted.

Even the cameraman on the touchline wore a huge smile as he ambled after the celebrating players.

King came close from Mahrez’s cross in the ninth minute and Mahrez was again the instigator in Leicester’s second goal on thirty-two minutes.  He darted between two players and into the box from the right, and although Leighton Baines poked the ball out from under the Algerian’s feet, King pounced on the rebound and tucked it into the back of the net.


The rain started pouring down on the KP Stadium and for Everton, it seemed that the storm would never cease.  Vardy won a penalty on the other side of the half and coolly buried it, although, presented with the opportunity to seal his hat-trick from the spot in the seventieth minute, got caught up in the moment and blazed it over the crossbar.

In a rare breakaway, Kevin Mirallas scored a lovely individual goal at the other end of the pitch, but it was a mere afterthought.

As the clock ticked down, the world converged upon Leicester.  Their names were forever engraved into the history books and, more importantly, the Premier League trophy.  For a moment, they gave pause to soak up the electric atmosphere and celebrations, then, of course, the clouds parted to reveal the blue skies above as captain Morgan triumphantly lifted the title hand-in-hand with Ranieri.  After all, this is a fairy-tale.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.