Manchester United 1, Leicester City 1
After waiting 132 years to become champions, Leicester City can wait another 30 hours or so. Maybe even another six days.
If there was an air of anti-climax on the final whistle, as a solemn Claudio Ranieri shook hands with all and sundry, the celebrations should come soon.
The boisterous supporters offered a microcosm of their season in song, beginning with a defiant chorus of “we are staying up” and ending with “we’re going to win the league.”
And so they surely will, if not just yet.
Should their triumph be confirmed on Monday, if Tottenham drop points at Stamford Bridge, their guiding light will remain in the dark for a little longer. Ranieri's has been a 30-year wait for such success in a managerial career that began in 1986.
“I’d like to watch the Tottenham match but I’m on a flight back from Italy so I might not know the result until I land,” he smiled. “I will be the last man to know.”
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He has a lunch date with his 96-year-old mother. It promises to be less nerve-racking afternoon than on Sunday.
A dank grey Mancunian day provided an awkward, at times fractious affair. It was inconclusive but compelling, not a coronation but an illustration of why the title should soon be Leicester’s.
They have strength, both physical and mental. They have organisation and determination. They are an advertisement for the power of collective endeavour.
Leicester are nudging closer to their improbable goal, grinding their way to glory. Their path to the title is caked in sweat. A team with a blue-collar work ethic got their reward for the shift they put in.
They have responded to setbacks; the early-season wait for one to send them spiralling downwards into mid-table has long since ended. When Anthony Martial fired Manchester United into an early lead, Leicester were tested again. They reacted again.
“Psychologically it was very important to come back,” said Ranieri. Psychologically, Leicester are the best team in the league.
They have excelled defensively, too. They had kept six clean sheets in their previous seven games. They were breached inside eight minutes. They were level within nine more.
Lacking the vast resources or the raw talent the favourites possess, they have proved a team who can excel at the basics are capable of going a long way.
For the second successive week, they scored from a Danny Drinkwater free kick. Leonardo Ulloa headed in against Swansea, Wes Morgan against United.
Shorn of the suspended Jamie Vardy – and, while he was not missed against Swansea, his pace on the counter-attack would have proved telling here – they compensated with dead-ball proficiency.
“They had only threat with set-plays,” United manager Louis van Gaal complained.
It was threat enough. Drinkwater was the instigator. His career had a slow start, his afternoon an early finish. It amounted to a cruel curtailing of the game for the most accomplished all-round midfielder on display.
Already booked, he collected a second caution for tugging Memphis Depay. Just as Vardy spent Sunday afternoon in the directors’ box, he will be suited, rather than booted, for the Everton game.
“I am very sad for him,” said Ranieri.
The Tinkerman turned paragon of continuity will be forced into a change. Yet Leicester do not – not in terms of their gameplan or their approach or, really, their results.
This was only the third game in 10 they failed to win. More significantly, they have only lost three in 36. That consistency makes them deserving leaders. Their team is populated by consistent performers, whether the terrific Morgan, the ill-fated Drinkwater or such solid figures as N’Golo Kante and Christian Fuchs.
“It is logical they are the future champion,” added Van Gaal.
It was scarcely the most glowing tribute and, to the mind of a theorist like the Dutchman, there may be something unsatisfactory about a fundamentally limited side like Leicester becoming champions.
Yet that all adds to this extraordinary achievement.
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