Whether Nottingham Forest, Iceland or Ivanisevic, Leicester City defy comparison

Osman Samiuddin tries to wrap his head around what Leicester City have accomplished this year, only to come up as empty as one trying to flip 'heads' 12 times in a row.

Leicester City lift the Premier League trophy after their win over Everton last weekend. Adrian Dennis / AFP / May 7, 2016

It has been over a week now since the triumph that beat all of sport. And even now you can probably come across people trying to make sense of Leicester City's title win. You might be doing it yourself.

A revealing way of just how much their win has reverberated across the world, I thought, is found on the other side of the Atlantic. Over there all articles explaining this season come with mandatory instructional nuggets in how to pronounce Leicester (Less-ter), as if it is a newborn club.

Few, if any, refer to the fact that not that long ago Leicester were actually a decent club doing pretty amazing things. Not this amazing admittedly, but at the turn of the century they won two League Cups and finished 9th, 10th, and 8th across three seasons under Martin O’Neill.

They played functional football, with tight budgets, and briefly flourished doing so; the league, even then, was well on its way to becoming beholden to the big spenders it is now.

Or even that this current fairytale is somewhat besmirched by an ongoing Football League investigation into Leicester’s 2013/14 promotion season in which, other clubs contend, they may have cheated financial fair play rules.

Nevertheless, my favourite way of trying to make someone comprehend what has happened is what the Daily Telegraph did: equate the probability of Leicester winning at the start of the season to that of calling 12 coin tosses correctly – or incorrectly – in a row.

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Although if you take that to its logical conclusion then what Nasser Hussain did as captain of England across a series of international matches in 2000 and 2001 was probably a greater feat. Hussain incorrectly called the toss 14 times in a row (each time he had the choice he called ‘Heads’) and it was such a run that the two occasions in that period he did not captain, the stand-in won the toss.

There are, thankfully, more credible ways to go about this. Many have compared Leicester’s win to Nottingham Forest’s title-winning season in 1977/78, their first season back in the top flight.

There are some parallels between the two campaigns, foremost that both were managed by unconventional, slightly odd coaches who had come in fresh from disastrous, brief stints and who then corralled a group of under-celebrated players to victory.

Landmark points through the season (a first, chastening loss to Arsenal for both clubs, seminal wins against Manchester clubs), the nature of their defence (two rugged, uncompromising centre-backs each); sure it looks similar. But Forest were still operating in a division far less unequal than the one Leicester are in.

I like to think Iceland, who qualified for this summer's Euros, make for a useful reference point. This is a country of 330,000 people – coincidentally the same population as that of Leicester – living on a volcanic island where the climate precludes playing football outdoors for much of the year.

Unlike Leicester they are restricted to finding players from within their geographical confines. Their league is still only semi-professional. At the turn of the century, when Leicester were winning League Cups, Iceland did not even have a single indoor full-size pitch which would allow training to take place during the winter.

Yet in qualifying for the Euros, they beat Netherlands home and away, the Czech Republic and Turkey once each. Nobody had given them a serious shot at qualifying from that group.

Admittedly Iceland's success is the result of a long-term process of development that is now bearing fruits – that is a pattern of operation not afforded to many football clubs, especially in the Premier League. Iceland might even be able to sustain it because international football is such a vastly different playground.

What else though? Goran Ivanisevic’s Wimbledon win in 2001 will live long and bright in all discussions of unlikely triumphs though, in terms of calling correctly in coin tosses, it was some way from matching Leicester’s win (just the eight consecutive correct calls).

John Daly’s win at the US PGA in 1991 is another; my favourite fact about that is that before he arrived at a course he had never before seen (he had to hire a caddy who had), he had made just 11 cuts in 23 starts.

But that, like Ivanisevic’s win or Greece’s at Euro 2004 and so many of the best upsets, came in tournament-play. And those we can understand. Strange things occasionally do happen in knockouts that conspire to spit out an unlikely winner.

A favourite pulls out, or has a really bad day, or has a poor decision go against them, or has other results go against them, or has luck go against them. That happens.

This, over the slow burn of a long and gruelling season where things even out? If only there was a coin-tossing world championship to help us understand.

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