There’s no doubting that Leicester City have gone above and beyond with their title-winning efforts in the Premier League.
With the Champions League beckoning, football fans the world round are wondering, can The Foxes continue to inspire on a continental stage?
Firstly, the gulf in quality between the Premier League and the Champions League has to be mentioned. The Champions League is a conglomerate of every in form, title-challenging team in Europe. Teams that play with different footballing values, teams that have the potential to play around the rough-and-ready Leicester style.
English teams, on the whole, have been struggling on the European front of late. Over the past three years, only three English clubs have made it past the round of 16: Manchester United made the quarterfinals in the 2013-14 season, Chelsea made it to the semis in the very same year and Manchester City’s this this year. This perhaps implies that the very English style that Leicester play with may not fly in the Champions League.
One way to gauge Leicester’s chances is by looking back at their performances against the teams that traditionally represent the Premier League in the Champions League. In recent memory only six sides have qualified: Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool.
In the Premier League fixtures against these sides Leicester City came away with four wins: against Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester City. They drew five of the games and lost on three occasions; twice to Arsenal and once away to Liverpool. This record isn’t one the glares as inferior, nor does it glow. Leicester have shown us that while they’re not the same calibre of club, they are will to trade blows with the biggest sides England has to offer.
Another factor in favour of the Foxes is the already established fact that, having won the Premier League, that they will be placed in the top seeding group.
This means that through the group stages they won’t have to face the champions from any of the major European leagues like Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich or Juventus. Which means that Leicester will be given time and a lower calibre of competition while they acclimatise to european football. However, there a couple of quality sides outside the top seeding group.
Leicester City, along with every other team in next year’s Premier League, will enjoy the windfall of the new television deal with Sky. Their ability to lure continental talent to the club will also benefit. While we all concede that Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante were bought at bargain prices, it would be ignorant of Claudio Raineri to assume the same can be accomplished this offseason.
If Leicester are going to compete in the Champions League Raineri is going to have to fork out for at least five first-team quality players.
The additional fixtures that come with Champions League football so often reveal the frailty of English squads – even among the top clubs. Even with the acquisition of more players there is the very real possibility that the Foxes’ boss will have to concede one or the other at some point, so rarely to teams compete consistently in both leagues.
Even in the scope of their recent fairytale season, Leicester excelled in the league, but as a result were forced to concede any real stake in both the Carling and FA Cups. In the Carling Cup, they were prematurely knocked out by Hull City, who won out on penalties after talisman, Mahrez missed a penalty.
Over in the FA Cup, they were forced to submit to a third-round loss to Tottenham Hotspur, who eventually finished third in the league.
With all that said, Raineri will likely focus on one particular issue during this off-season – holding onto his Premier League-winning side.
The problem when you enjoy a meteoric rise, like Leicester have, is that all your star players are still on layman contracts. Vardy and Marhez have been secured on three-year contracts, while the rest of the team are all on contracts that are can be bought out.
All things considered, the fact that Leicester City will be playing Champions League next season is fairytale enough and deep down we’ll all be hoping that they can make history just one more time.
More than that, we know that Raineri will do everything he can to secure the stature of a Leicester City side that he brought back from the brink of relegation.
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