Leicester City – The Dream Continues….

Posted by Rob Shepherd on Friday, March 17, 2017

If the tale of Leicester City was made into a Hollywood movie, it would be the most far-fetched story-line in the history of cinema. Pele teaming up with Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine to foil their Nazi capturers in Escape to Victory seems a lot more believable than the fairy-tale that was last season for Leicester.

This season, Leicester City’s struggle in the Premier League has been well documented, it was this poor form that saw manager Claudio Ranieri sacked.

Ironically, it was the first leg 2-1 defeat by Sevilla in the Champions League that saw Claudio given his marching orders. Even though Jamie Vardy’s 73rd minute goal had given the Midlands team a glimmer of hope for the 2nd leg.

Like many spectators, I was expecting a plucky Leicester City performance but fully expected the class of Sevilla who sit 3rd in La Liga to shine through. How wrong was I?

This was Craig Shakespeare’s first full game in charge after being announced as manager till the end of the season. Green shoots of recovery are starting to be seen in the Premier League with 3-1 wins against Liverpool and Hull but this performance was more like the incredible Leicester of last year.

Leicester’s reversal of the 2-1 first leg to win 2-0 at Leicester owed a lot to Kasper Schmeichel. He saved a rather soft penalty from Steven Nzonzi, this was Schmeichel’s second penalty save of the tie. The great Dane was in inspired form and was kept busy at his near post by Manchester City’s on-loan Samir Nasri.

Despite early Sevilla pressure, it was Leicester who scored with their first attempt on goal in the 27th minute. A deep free kick by Riyad Mahrez was diverted in by Leicester captain Wes Morgan. Morgan, was quite fortuitous to make contact to score only his 26th career goal but he won’t care.

Schmeichel was nearly beaten on 54 minutes when a 30-yard drive hit the underside of crossbar and Wissam Ben Yedder hit the rebound skyward.

Almost immediately after this miss, Leicester doubled the score on the night. Sevilla failed to clear a Mahrez’s cross and Albrighton hit a sweet shot that beat Sergio Rico.

The more Sevilla pressed, the more space opened up for the ever-dangerous Vardy to exploit. Indeed, Vardy could have put Leicester 3-0 up but his 66th minute volley was miscued.

There was still time for plenty of talking points, Nasri was sent off for a 2nd yellow card after squaring up with Vardy. Schmeichel conceded and saved a penalty and the Sevilla manager was sent to the stands.

There were a few scares and tense moments towards the end but Leicester hung on to once more shock the footballing world and become England’s sole representative in this year’s Champions League.

Manchester City – The Nightmare Continues….

Manchester City headed into their game with Monaco in a different situation to Leicester, after winning the first leg 5-3 in an incredible game, all City had to do was not concede a goal.

But that’s like asking water not to be wet, bears not to sh*t in the woods and Liverpool fans not to be too optimistic about next year’s chances of winning the league.

Of course, the warning signs were already there from the first leg. It was an amazing game which has been typical of some of the great matches we have seen over the last couple of weeks in Europe. City were at their attacking best with Sterling, Aguero, Sane and even under fire defender, John Stones getting in on the goal scoring action.

Monaco had a gung-ho attitude and were quite prepared to go toe to toe with City, trading punches in what became a good old fashioned slug fest. Uppercuts in the form of counterattacks made for a trilling spectacle as the game swung from side to side.

If FIFA had any officials testing for drugs that night, I hope they got a DNA sample from Radamel Falcao! I cannot believe this was the same player that we saw in the Premier League with Manchester United and Chelsea. He was back to his world class best and caused City plenty of problems and scored two great goals.

But at 5-3, you still fancied City to get through.

Pep Guardiola will look back on this game and feel disappointed by his defenders. They seem to be clueless when defending set pieces. It’s the sin of not being able to defend that has seen City concede an incredible 16 goals. For once, City’s forward line was unable to save them.

No doubt many questions will be asked about City, his arrival in Manchester was supposed to herald a new dawn of European success, until they sort out their dodgy defence, this will just be a pipe dream.

Who is left in the competition?

Atletico Madrid (Spain) 10/1

Barcelona (Spain) 11/4

Bayern Munich (Germany) 11/4

Borussia Dortmund (Germany) 11/1

Juventus (Italy) 8/1

Leicester (England) 33/1

Monaco (France) 16/1

Real Madrid (Spain) 9/2

Could we see a rank outsider this year? It’s already been a great year for twists and turns, we could see many more yet! With Leicester drawing Atletico Madrid, could the biggest football fairy-tale in years have yet another chapter?

Champions League quarter-final draw

Atletico Madrid v Leicester City

Borussia Dortmund v Monaco

Bayern Munich v Real Madrid

Juventus v Barcelona

First legs 11 & 12 April. Second legs 18 & 19 April