How the 5,000-to-1 odds fairy tale began in Thailand
Even if you know nothing about English soccer, you probably are aware of what has been billed as the greatest sporting upset of all time. Leicester City FC started the English Premier League season in August at 5,000-to-1 odds to win the 38-game competition by season’s end in May. But after its nearest challenger faltered Monday, Leicester City clinched the top spot, a minnow triumphing over massive sharks.
The cliché of David versus Goliath doesn’t do this situation justice — Leicester’s stunning success is, if anything, a tale of David versus Goliaths. Many pundits are still struggling to explain how this relatively small, unfancied club was able to compete with and outdo some of soccer’s biggest, richest giants.
Yet for all the hoopla and deserved kudos, this isn’t quite the story of a provincial nobody rising to the top. The English Premier League is a money-spinning bonanza, flush with cash from huge global TV deals as well as the sponsorship of a range of foreign consortia and oligarchs.
Leicester City is no different. It’s owned by Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, a Thai billionaire who has invested considerably in the club since acquiring it in 2010 when the side was still in England’s Championship, or second division. His support allowed the club’s leadership to build the un- heralded yet competent squad of journeymen and young talents it currently has. The Wall Street Journal explained the transformation: “Mr. Vichai moved quickly to change the culture surrounding the club . . . He also avoided splashing out on expensive star players.”
The scenes of jubilation and triumph on Bangkok’s streets this week are all the more remarkable when you consider the lurid headlines that the club’s Thai connections generated last summer. On an off-season tour in Bangkok, a number of Leicester City players, including the son of then-head coach Nigel Pearson, filmed themselves making racist, lewd comments in a hotel room while in the company of three Thai prostitutes. The footage led to Pearson’s firing. His replacement, Claudio Ranieri, was mocked by critics. He arrived in the summer after being fired by Greece for losing to the Faroe Islands. Ranieri and his charges, though, embarked on a miraculous journey thereafter, proving critics wrong and making a nation thousands of miles away rather proud. With files from Star wire services