Leicester City are busy making history again. No other English team have managed to win their first two Champions League matches. Leicester’s 1-0 victory against Porto makes qualification to the knockout stages look distinctly possible with six points on the board already but whatever happens from now they hold the distinction of coming to terms with elevation to the Champions League more quickly than any of their illustrious predecessors.
On the domestic front, after three defeats in the opening six games, the history made last season is fast becoming a distant memory. The key to success last time was a solid start and managing to stay ahead for most of the campaign. Leicester have looked far from solid in the league and not just in conceding three goals from first-half corners at Manchester United last week. It is already being said – Claudio Ranieri is asked the question on a weekly basis – that subconsciously or otherwise Leicester are saving their best efforts for Europe this season.
Naturally the manager denies it. His stock answer runs along the lines of preparing for every game meticulously and separately. Only when Leicester have finished with a Premier League engagement do they permit themselves to look forward to a European fixture, and vice versa. Leicester take one game at a time, in other words, or at least that is what they are trying to do.
Yet not only do results and form suggest they are not succeeding in their aim, Ranieri rather gave the game away at Old Trafford on Saturday by taking Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez off at half-time. Fair enough, at 4-0 down the game was beyond them and the Leicester manager was entitled to husband his resources as best he could with a view to the next game but it is going to be hard convincing players and supporters after that double withdrawal that Leicester’s focus remains on the league, and that they are not moving most of their casino chips on to the square marked European adventure.
Leicester are getting carried away by the excitement of Europe. Who wouldn’t, in their position? With the best will in the world, they are unlikely to win the Premier League again. Not this season, not next season, perhaps not ever. Even if Ranieri and his players could keep up the dashing hit-and-run tactics of last season, even if they could somehow retain the element of surprise and stealth, the other teams in the race have all improved and strengthened.
Many of them have new managers and massively increased budgets, Manchester City have not just won six league games in a row they have won all 10 of their fixtures under Pep Guardiola. Things have moved on. If Leicester’s success last season was possible only because they were consistently brilliant while the other contenders were dozing or rebuilding, the last part of that equation has altered. City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham, to name four, do not look as if they intend to be caught napping again.
Maybe the first part of the equation has changed too. If Leicester are not quite the same force it is perhaps because they know they will not be playing for the same prize. Ranieri will continue to talk a good game, his players will continue to run themselves into the ground on his behalf but lightning will not strike twice.
Fairytales are ephemeral things, difficult to repeat on demand. Ranieri appears to understand this. When he talked of “continuing the fairytale” he was speaking of the Champions League challenge, not a domestic season already in danger of returning to the mundane. In all probability everyone at Leicester knows deep down that last season is likely to prove a one-off and nothing is going to be as phenomenal or exciting again.
With the possible exception of Europe. Here, at least, Leicester are making footsteps on untrodden ground. Here, just like last season at home, there are no expectations, Leicester can operate under the radar again. After the big adventure reality has returned with a bump in the Premier League but the Champions League still permits big dreams and exciting possibilities.
This is not to suggest Leicester are capable of winning the thing. Ask Ranieri about that and he will laugh and say no chance. He spent most of last season responding in exactly the same way to questions about the possibility of Leicester winning the Premier League. Leicester becoming champions is clearly no guarantee of European success. English champions have been failing to terrorise the superpowers of Europe for some years but Leicester have not failed their European audition. They have not fallen at the first hurdle. They look confident and purposeful, and have put themselves in a good position to still be around after Christmas.
If they make it to the knockout stage, they appear to have a team perfectly suited to the challenge of winning over two legs. Quick-breaking, compact in defending, usually capable of a goal or two even when pinned back or having to be patient. At least that is what it appears Leicester can do based on the evidence of last season. Based on the evidence of the defeat at United reaching the knockout stage may be a dream too far, unless we are in fact watching two different Leicesters this season. There’s the one at home, who understand that after the goodwill earned last season practically anything short of a dalliance with relegation will not attract too much condemnation this time. Then there’s the one in Europe, the one seeing how far they can go in an intoxicating environment no one imagined a club such as Leicester would ever to be able to sample.
Ranieri denies Leicester are picking their matches but he would say that, wouldn’t he? He has to, though it doesn’t mean he has any real control over the situation. He’s up against human nature here, always assuming the manager himself isn’t as guilty as his players of subconsciously prioritising the European games. Not many of us without degrees in psychology are capable of understanding or influencing the subconscious mind. As Bertie Wooster once said, when Jeeves had broached the subject: “I wouldn’t have said off-hand that I had a subconscious mind but I suppose I must have without knowing it.”