One of the attractions of football is the inability to understand how the near impossible happens. The best coaches, the leading pundits, the most experienced observers and the club's fans could not really explain how or why Leicester City won the Premier League last season. You still think you should check before writing "Champion Leicester."
Even now, in hindsight, it is still difficult to see how a 5,000-1 outsider could go from narrowly escaping relegation to winning the title and now flirting with the drop again. Yes, Leicester punched above its weight. No, it had no European involvement, it was lucky with injuries and as much as anything the traditional heavyweights of English football took their collective eye off the ball. But being a relegation candidate, champion and the former once more is an inexplicable treble, especially the one in the middle.
Only once before in Premier League history had there been a surprise champion when Blackburn Rovers won the title in 1994-95, though it had finished runner-up to Manchester United the previous season, a far cry from Leicester's struggle before success. Rovers finished seventh and 13th the following two seasons, but the burden of being the champion is weighing heavily on Leicester's shoulders as it finds itself in a relegation dogfight just three points above the drop-zone.
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