IT’S SAUL OVER FOR FAB FOXES
Spaniard’s goal seals their fate despite Vardy rally
And that was it, the last game of the most incredible season in English football. 2015- 16: when Leicester won the Premier League.
What a ride it has been. What thrills, what surprises, all the way through to the final 30 minutes here when Leicester needed two more goals to eliminate Atletico Madrid, and left nothing on the field in their ferocious search for them.
When referee Gianluca Rocchi blew the final whistle, Leicester’s players sank to the turf, spent. The fans rose as one, a deserved standing ovation. Yet when the din subsides and the adrenaline stops its pulsating course they, too, will recognise that they have witnessed the end of an era.
This was the last match that is a product of Leicester’s title win. And now that it is over, when will we see its like again? Realistically, when will Leicester win the title or even challenge for it? When will they play in the Champions League, or even Europe? At the moment the final whistle blew,blew it was done. not just this game, but two years of escapism and astonishment, a unique and surprising period in the history of English football.
This quarter-final, and Leicester’s exit from the Champions League, marks the conclusion of a narrative that took in a 5,000-1 title win, the rise and fall of the charismatic Claudio Ranieri and an unlikely Champions League run, the last Premier League club standing in Europe’s biggest competition.
So we saw Leicester at their best in many ways last night, but bade them farewell too.too The sacking of Ranieri confirmed that the priority for the club remains not getting relegated, and they will probably be very happy to be one of the Premier League’s awkward squad from here. Hard to beat, capable of a victory against anyone on their day. But wearers of the crown?
If Leicester did what West Brom have done this season, the owners would be delighted with Craig Shakespeare next year. To be fair, if they ended up where they are now, he would be pretty safe, as long as they did not first flirt with relegation.
Yet in praising Leicester it would not do to didismiss the immense efforts of Atletico Madrid. not many clubs inn Europe would have been able to withstand the ferocity of Leicest ter’s second-half onslaught and that they let in a single goal is credit to them.
Riyad Mahrez played the ball out to Marc Albrighton on the right wing. His cross was beyond Jamie Vardy but not substitute Ben Chilwell, whose shot was blocked by a frantic Stefan Savic. The ball spun up and fell handily for Vardy, but his finish was nevertheless superb.
He was quickest to the loose ball, too, seizing it and sprinting for the centre circle before a Madrid player could delay the restart. There were still 30 minutes remaining. What followed was noisy, emotional, courageous, pulsating, chaotic, but ultimately not enough.
Kasper Schmeichel came up to add his presence to the forward line at dead balls and Madrid blocked and smothered with the intensity of underdogs, clinging to a shock FA Cup lead. The locals loved every minute of it — but it was, sadly, nowhere near enough.
Leicester needed three goals — three quarters of the total Atletico had conceded in the Champions League coming into this game — but had to settle for one. At the end, diego Simeone congratulated Shakespeare’s players as well as his own, but it was September 16, 2014, when Atletico last leaked three goals in Europe, and a repeat never looked likely. They are colossal, defensively.
The problem for Leicester was always going to be the away goal — the lack of one in Madrid and the threat of one here. It meant that if Madrid scored, then Leicester needed three, and in the 26th minute, they did.
What a beautifully executed goal it was, too. A sublimely targeted cross, a magnificently placed header. It isn’t true to say Leicester had no chance because Christian Fuchs, most certainly, should have been more aware of his surroundings. But to apportion blame detracts from Madrid’s precision, and that would not be right.
Filipe Luis is one of those Premier League mystery players. See him in the red and white of Atletico and he looks one of the finest full-backs in Europe. In his one season for Chelsea he could barely make the team and, when he did, was a crashing disappointment. Why, who knows? Strong defensively, athletic, an outstanding crosser of the ball, he seemed made for the Premier League. There is not a coach working in England who would not kill for a left-back who could deliver the ball that made Atletico’s goal.
It picked out Saul niguez with the precision of the MOAB, and with a similar effect on Leicester’s hopes of progress. Saul had come off Fuchs and had enough time and space to target the corner of the goal with his header. It was cushioned, it was measured, it had sufficient power to elude Schmeichel, and there is not a striker alive who would not want it in his highlights reel. But Saul plays wide.
Momentarily, he silenced the King Power Stadium. They had dry ice, they had clappers, they had fireworks, they had gold, blue
and silver flags, a giant fox on a flag and a noisy, jubilant pre-match ceremony. But they didn’t have an answer to that. And now they needed three of them.
From there, Madrid defended mightily. Indeed, if Arsenal’s problem this season has been a lack of defenders who want to get in where it hurts, Arsene Wenger should maybe show his back four more footage of Simeone’s team. They queue up to win headers, to block, to harry, to close. Leicester tried all their old tricks — the ball over the top, the inswinging corner, the low flat throw from Fuchs. Madrid repelled it all.
They are smart, too. When Fuchs went down injured in Madrid’s penalty area, they immediately played Yannick Carrasco in down his channel and he rode a rather cavalier challenge from Yohan Benalouane before getting in a tangle with Schmeichel. The goalkeeper appeared to catch his legs winning the ball but referee Rocchi waved play on.
At the end, as Madrid’s players went to applaud their fans, some in the home crowd booed. It seemed a strange, and unnecessary reaction. They won’t see many teams as good as this around these parts for a while. Sadly, they may not see many teams like this at all.