France Football led with the news that "Leicester has achieved the
impossible," while Germany's Bild said: "Europe's biggest football
sensation - Leicester's title miracle is real."
Leicester's Premier League fairytale makes papers worldwide(Reuters)
Leicester City's remarkable Premier League
triumph after starting the season as 5,000-1 outsiders to win the title
made the pages of the press around the world on Tuesday.
Leicester clinched the English league title for the first time in their 132-year history on Monday night when second-placed Tottenham Hotspur drew with Chelsea, leaving them too far behind the leaders with only two games left to play.
Praise poured in around the world for Leicester, who were on the brink of relegation last season.
France Football led with the news that "Leicester has achieved the impossible," while Germany's Bild said: "Europe's biggest football sensation - Leicester's title miracle is real."
Major U.S. newspaper the New York Times' article, "Leicester City Completes Rise by Clinching Premier League Title," drew attention to their meteoric rise after flirting with a drop to the Championship last year.
The Sydney Morning Herald said in an article "Leicester City's Premier League win much more than a miracle" that the gruelling, "miracle-proof" league schedule makes the team's victory all the more impressive.
Norway paper VG answered the question of "What Does the Fox Say?", a Norwegian number one single by Ylvis, by saying "Cha-Cha-Cha Champions".
The
British press reports were no less glowing. From "Zeroes into heroes"
(Metro) to "history makers" (Daily Mirror), Claudio Ranieri's men were
lauded all round, with the Sun and Daily Star highlighting the end to
Leicester's anxious wait with a simple "Blue done it".
The
Foxes' dream run was given a Shakespearean touch by the Guardian, who
declared the side "Kings of England" with a picture of Richard III,
whose bones are buried in Leicester.
The "fairytale finish for champions Leicester"
(The Times) as the club "pulled off greatest fairytale in football
history" (Daily Express) was greeted in the Daily Telegraph with
"Leicester's miracle men crowned Premier League champions".
A
Times writer, along with others, said that "you would have got better
odds on finding Elvis alive" with bookmakers giving Leicester only a
0.02 percent chance at the beginning of the season.
For
the Mirror they were "The Incredibles" and "rebels without a clause"
(Mirror) because, as several writers recorded, this was a team put
together for so much less money than almost all of their rivals.
The Telegraph also highlighted this fact. "In
a story worthy of The Boy's Own Paper, the team from a relatively small
and unglamorous town has come back from near disaster a year ago to
overcome flashier, richer rivals."
It "proved miracles do occasionally happen", said the Mirror in arguing that Leicester had recaptured some of football’s beauty with its unlikely success.
KING CLAUDIO
The
accolades were also heaped on manager Claudio Ranieri, who has never
won the top flight title before in his 30-year managerial career.
He
was "King Claudio" in his home country Italy's La Gazetta dello Sport,
which portrayed him as a Romanesque statue, while Tuttosport hailed him
the "King of England". Corriere dello Sport joined in by hailing the
monumental achievement.
Catalan-based sport daily
Marca featured Ranieri alongside the headline 'Ole Leicester!' The
64-year-old manager spent four years working in Spain with spells at
Atletico Madrid and Valencia.
Spanish newspaper
Mundo Deportivo featured a shot of Leicester City's jubilant fans with
the headline 'Leicester Miracle'. While AS claimed Leicester's triumph
as the "the miracle of the century".
The headline
on the main piece in Le Parisien read: "Leicester, incredible kings of
England.", while L'Equipe's front page had a headline read "So Good!"
with a photo of Leicester players celebrating.
Not
all the coverage was quite so celebratory. Japanese sports paper
Sponichi hailed Leicester's victory - but added that its star players
were now the targets of bigger, higher-paying clubs, meaning the team
could struggle next season.
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