Duality can be a predicament. Leicester City inhibit dichotomy, following their unique success last season, punctuated by “dilly-ding, dilly-dong” coaching theories, Jamie Vardy parties and suffocating midfield odysseys from N’Golo Kanté. They were not supposed to get more than the 40 points required to avoid relegation, but instead Leicester procured 81 in a modern epic of sporting greatness.
But their unexpected and confounding triumph has brought along new problems: Where will Leicester’s ambition and realism meet this season? It’s a difficult calibration, with their Champions League participation. Last season, they sky-rocketed, playing solid, blue collar football, finishing in a surreal stratosphere of Premier League glory. Even with Herculean toil, Leicester would regress this season – a drop-off at low speed.
Lambs at home, lions in Europe
Leicester have retrogressed. They have disappointed on the domestic scene, so much so that whispers of a potential relegation have sipped into the creaking King Power Stadium. Even at the press conference before their game with Club Brugge on Tuesday, relegation was at the centre of a semi cross examination for both Claudio Ranieri, Leceister’s coach, and Riyad Mahrez. They deflected the questions.
The other questions were of a very different nature: Could Mahrez win the Ballon d’Or? What about the prospect of reaching the round of 16 of the Champions League? It was a confirmation of the ambivalence at the north English club this season. They have been excellent in the Champions League, but poor in the Premier League.
As opponents, Brugge hardly represented the pinnacle of the European game. It’s in the picturesque Flemish town with cobbled streets and ancient redbrick buildings that Leicester’s first campaign in the Champions League began back in September. Leicester’s opening match was scarcely a glamorous encounter with FC Barcelona or Bayern Munich, but at the Jan Breydel Stadium, an unsightly concrete ground, Leicester marked their European presence with an emphatic 3-0 victory courtesy of goals from both Marc Albrighton, in the fifth minute, and Mahrez, with a brace.
The phantasmagoric, even freakish, air around Leicester’s continental baby steps had evaporated. Leicester went on to win all their games in the Champions League and didn’t concede a goal until Tuesday evening when Brugge’s Colombian striker José Izquierdo outpaced Christian Fuchs and riffled the ball into the roof of the net past Ron-Robert Zieler in the 52nd minute. By then, the hosts had scored twice.
Top of the group
Leicester had taken the lead, in the fifth minute again, with the game’s first shot, off Shinji Okazaki’s boot. Stijn Cools had clumsily ceded possession, allowing Leicester to transition rapidly. At the half-hour mark, Mahrez converted a penalty. Cools had dangled out a leg inside the box. Referee Ruddy Buquet punished his maladroit entanglement with Albrighton.
In the first half, Brugge had very much been the embodiment of a club that didn’t belong in the Champions League. They conceded goals softly and had little quality when on the ball. They have been the smuck of Group G. The Belgian club belong to an increasing number of outfits who give the Champions League a predictable character. From domestic giants, often with possession and monster score lines, Brugge and others turn into continental minnows. Izquierdo’s strike did galvanise the Belgians, who, in a box-to box finale of raucous intensity, flying tackles, near-misses and commendable saves, almost salvaged a draw.
The English champions survived a nervy last few minutes. And so, on 13 points, Leicester will finish top of the group. Arguably, their pairing with FC Copenhagen and FC Porto, as other group G rivals, was benign. That allowed Leicester to flourish in a competition they considered to be a bonus. The lagniappe, however, may save Leicester’s dawdling season.
In the Premier League, they hover two points above the bottom three, the relegation zone, after enduring a sixth defeat of the season, at Vicarage Road on Saturday against Watford. Theories have been abound about Leicester’s domestic slump and their defensive brittleness, midfield feebleness and attacking impotency: a sapped group of players, a Kante-sized hole or fatigue induced by the European midweek matches.
Ranieri knows that his team will need 40 points and this season he may not need to revise that target. At least, in the Champions League, they overachieved again, because Leicester had set out to survive the European winter in the Europa League. “Our fairytale is continuing,” Ranieri had said after their first meeting with Brugge. “We did something special last season and we’re doing it again this season.”
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