2008 Raimon Manco Peruvian youth star was playing with PSV Champions League at the age of 20 years after winning the sub 17 World Cup with Peru and being the best player leaving James Rodriguez in second place. There, Raimond was a beast. But after some time not everything came as planned, the perfect Raimon had some imperfections. He wasn't humble at all; he thought that because he was scoring goals in the Champions League, he was going to be the best player. Some time later Reimond turned up drunk for practice and after a first warning he did it again. Raimon was sent back to Peru to a 2 division team named “UTC de Cajamarca” where he could do whatever he liked with no consequences.
Last year a friend that played at the youth team in Leicester told me that there they needed to clean the professional players boots every day and sometimes cut the field grass. Leicester main purpose it to give the youth players a dose of humility and respect.
Leicester's manager Claudio Ranieri has often been portrayed as a figure of fun in the media, and was never given the credit for many of his achievements at Chelsea, especially in laying the foundations that Mourinho would later build on. Even when he left Chelsea he did so in a gracious way, writing a book about the matter, and donating the proceeds to Great Ormond Street Children's’ Hospital. There has been a quiet dignity to his career, even again when sacked by Monaco two years ago after taking them to second place in the French League with a massive points total. He’s now got his team playing with the same quiet dignity, and it works at Leicester in a way it might not at one of the bigger clubs where managers are expected to be brash, confident, and loose with soundbites.
Despite the importance of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, the team doesn’t seem to collapse in style or psychology when they’re not at the top of their game, rare as that has been this season. Not only are they winning with the sort of commanding elan rarely seen before at the club, but they are turning an entire sporting culture upside down. That is the underlying reason for their popularity. They are not Manchester United, Manchester City, or Chelsea, or Arsenal, or Liverpool. More than that, Leicester’s defensive platform is strong enough to sustain them from all-out attack by their opponents, and behind this they have a goalkeeper finally living up to his family name. If they avoid injuries to key players, there’s no gaping hole for opponents to exploit. There have been blips along the way, such as a 5-2 home defeat to Arsenal, but they have always bounced back, defying the expectation that they’re only keeping the nest warm for when one of the bigger clubs finally take flight.
In fact, at the beginning of the football season, it was significantly more likely that U2-singer Bonoto become the next pope (1,000-to-1), that reality television star Kim Kardashian to win the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize (500-to-1), that Sean "Diddy" Combs to be be the next actor to star in the James Bond movie franchise (250-to-1) than it was for Leicester to win the league at the start of the season.Leicester winning the title would do a lot for the beautiful game. It would give hope to every other club that the cartel at the top can be broken, and prove that there’s not a natural order of how things ought to be in the Premier League.
Last year a friend that played at the youth team in Leicester told me that there they needed to clean the professional players boots every day and sometimes cut the field grass. Leicester main purpose it to give the youth players a dose of humility and respect.
Leicester's manager Claudio Ranieri has often been portrayed as a figure of fun in the media, and was never given the credit for many of his achievements at Chelsea, especially in laying the foundations that Mourinho would later build on. Even when he left Chelsea he did so in a gracious way, writing a book about the matter, and donating the proceeds to Great Ormond Street Children's’ Hospital. There has been a quiet dignity to his career, even again when sacked by Monaco two years ago after taking them to second place in the French League with a massive points total. He’s now got his team playing with the same quiet dignity, and it works at Leicester in a way it might not at one of the bigger clubs where managers are expected to be brash, confident, and loose with soundbites.
Despite the importance of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, the team doesn’t seem to collapse in style or psychology when they’re not at the top of their game, rare as that has been this season. Not only are they winning with the sort of commanding elan rarely seen before at the club, but they are turning an entire sporting culture upside down. That is the underlying reason for their popularity. They are not Manchester United, Manchester City, or Chelsea, or Arsenal, or Liverpool. More than that, Leicester’s defensive platform is strong enough to sustain them from all-out attack by their opponents, and behind this they have a goalkeeper finally living up to his family name. If they avoid injuries to key players, there’s no gaping hole for opponents to exploit. There have been blips along the way, such as a 5-2 home defeat to Arsenal, but they have always bounced back, defying the expectation that they’re only keeping the nest warm for when one of the bigger clubs finally take flight.
In fact, at the beginning of the football season, it was significantly more likely that U2-singer Bonoto become the next pope (1,000-to-1), that reality television star Kim Kardashian to win the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize (500-to-1), that Sean "Diddy" Combs to be be the next actor to star in the James Bond movie franchise (250-to-1) than it was for Leicester to win the league at the start of the season.Leicester winning the title would do a lot for the beautiful game. It would give hope to every other club that the cartel at the top can be broken, and prove that there’s not a natural order of how things ought to be in the Premier League.