The most revealing moment, perhaps, came in the small, airless room beneath the Jan Breydel Stadion where Wes Morgan was asked whether Leicester City, preparing for their first experience of the Champions League, could confound everyone again by winning the damn thing. “Why not?” Morgan asked, doing his best to sound like he meant it and unaware that, sitting in the seat to his right, Claudio Ranieri was trying, and failing, to keep a straight face. Leicester’s manager seemed to find the idea hilarious.
It was after Morgan had left that Ranieri was asked why he had been laughing. “Why are you laughing?” he shot back. “It is good when my players believe in something. We wrote a fantastic fairytale last season. Nobody, even us, believed it could be possible at the beginning. But there are so many big teams in the Champions League. It is impossible.”
And, in theory, who could possibly argue? Already, there are signs a little bit of the magic has worn off. Leicester, beaten only three times in the Premier League last season, have lost two of their four games as champions. Or three out of five, if we are counting the Community Shield. Except the strangest thing of all is, this being Leicester, there is always that tiny seed of doubt for anyone wanting to write them off.
Ranieri summed it up best and suddenly it sounded as though he might agree with Morgan after all. “I say it is impossible,” he said, “but Leicester have shown the impossible is possible.”
Can they do it? Can Leicester, with only seven players in their squad with Champions League experience, continue the comparisons with Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest and become the kings of Europe? Or is it even a fair question as they step into a brave new world with an opening assignment against Club Brugge?
Ranieri talked about having to “write another big fairytale” and, when it comes to Mission Impossible – the Sequel, creating “the second story”. The first is celebrated by a book, written by the Leicester Mercury correspondent, called 5000-1. This time, the bookmakers have them at a mere 50-1 to be parading the European Cup around Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium on 28 May. That itself represents a small victory and, once again, it feels like a trick of the mind that it is only eight years since Leicester were in the third tier of English football, preparing for a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie against Lincoln City in the middle of a run of League One games taking in Leyton Orient, Hartlepool and Colchester.
No doubt some of those supporters gathering in Grote Markt will have a vague memory of that 0-0 draw against a side six places off the bottom of the Football League. Leicester won on penalties, in front of a crowd of 8,046, before going out to Rotherham in the next round. It all feels very different to playing for the European Cup, and being informed in the pre-match news conference they are the favourites to progress from their group.
Ranieri grimaced when that was put to him. “Some people say: ‘Oh, Leicester can win the group.’ Hey, calm! There are Brugge, who have a lot of experience, Porto, who have a lot of experience and Copenhagen, who have a lot of experience. Yes, Leicester won the Premier League, fantastic, but it is behind us.”
By now we should be accustomed to Ranieri playing down expectations and the press-conference tactics of a man whose team were squatting defiantly at the top of the Premier League last season while he was looking everyone in the eye and insisting his only ambition was to get to 40 points and stave off relegation.
On this occasion, however, it did not feel like such an act to hear him saying he would be satisfied merely to finish third in Group G and qualify for the Europa League, thereby ensuring European football after Christmas.
Since 2002, only nine out of 46 teams playing in the Champions league for the first time have qualified for the knockout stages. Leicester’s 4-1 defeat at Liverpool on Saturday was their heaviest in more than a year. Their star performers have not clicked into gear yet – Riyad Mahrez being the case in point – and Ranieri gave the impression he believes some of his players are still caught up in the euphoria of May.
“Maybe the critics will criticise us all the season,” he said. “Because if people think about last season they think wrong. It is a new season – totally different. There are teams who haven’t won the title for 30 years. We won the title, now we have to restart and not think about what happened last season. Restart, to be safe.
“I don’t want to make it an illusion to our fans. We know very well this season is totally different. Last season, everyone gave 120% and everything was perfect. Perfection doesn’t exist. This season, maybe we have to pay something but I am very happy to pay now because we broke a lot of things last season.”
For all his caution, Leicester have certainly been placed in an obliging group, comprising a handy mix of attractive cities for their supporters to visit and three teams who should not inspire a great deal of trepidation. Brugge are 10th in the Belgian league after losing three of their six games. Leicester are 16th in the Premier League. Early days, of course, but Ranieri’s team will begin their new adventures in a stadium only two-thirds full, with an expected crowd of around 20,000.
