Don’t count Leicester out in Champions quarter-finals

LEICESTER, ENGLAND — The obvious answer was Barcelona or Real Madrid. Bayern Munich would have been understandable, too.

But when Gianluigi Buffon was asked which team he would like to avoid in the draw for the Champions League quarter-finals, the Juventus goalkeeper went for competition’s big outsider.

“Leicester,” the Italy great said, “because it is a dangerous team, a team which will have enthusiasm, a team which has the weapons to cause trouble for teams who want to take the initiative.”

Against Leicester, Buffon added, “there would also be everything to lose.”

Indeed, the previously unheralded club from central England is making a habit of embarrassing Europe’s big teams.

Last season, the cream of English soccer couldn’t live with Leicester, which romped to the Premier League title by 10 points at odds of 5,000-1. This season, they’ve moved onto the Champions League, topping a group that contained two-time European champion FC Porto before eliminating Sevilla — a club that has won the Europa League the past three years — in the last 16.

“We are in there on merit, make no mistake,” Leicester manager Craig Shakespeare said, looking ahead to Friday’s quarter-final draw. “We might be the surprise team.”

Except no one should be surprised by Leicester anymore. This is a team playing soccer in a simple but highly effective way and specializing in making possible the impossible. It’s time to take them seriously. Shakespeare was asked after the 2-0 win over Sevilla, which sealed a 3-2 victory on aggregate, whether playing against Europe’s power clubs would actually suit his counter-attacking team. He seemed to agree. “You have to be concerned about the opposition and know their strengths. But I think as a football club, we have to know our strengths. And you saw that in abundance (against Sevilla), in terms of desire, and we can play a bit as well.”

The last thing a team should do when playing Leicester is leave space behind the defence for Jamie Vardy or Riyad Mahrez to run into, or give away free kicks around the penalty area to bring big centre backs Wes Morgan and Robert Huth into goal-scoring contention. Sevilla did just that. Now, Leicester is 360 minutes away from a Champions final.