Home and AwayLeicester City are unique, a one-off – but the most stunning champions of England in Premier League history are the real deal
The Foxes have soul and spirit ... and that can’t be mass-produced, marketed and sold for a profit
Leicester’s unlikely rise to the top of English football is being held up in business schools as a lesson on how to achieve victory against overwhelming odds.
Leicester picked a perfect year in which to give the world-weary a rare fairy tale with which we can all identify and rejoice in
Earnest MBA students want to know what makes the Foxes winners and how their overachieving formula can be copied, and no doubt then mass-produced, marketed and sold for a profit.
Some analysts claimed Leicester used the “Money Ball” formula that saw the cash-strapped Oakland Athletics put together a motley Major League Baseball team in 2002 by exploiting an inefficient transfer market in which undervalued players could be bought for a song and go on to win against all odds.
True, Leicester’s squad cost a fraction of their rivals, £54 million (HK$606 million), compared with nearest rivals Tottenham at £161 million and Manchester City’s £418 million, and their wage bill is minuscule compared with the handful of top clubs who have won the title over the last 40 years.
The elite clubs have been in disarray, firing, hiring – and in Arsenal’s case, sticking with - the wrong managers, while overpaid, egotistical players have been doing what they do best, behaving badly and underperforming.