Leicester is the new champion of England

Leicester City is the new champion of England. Yes! You read it right, Leicester have just won arguably the most popular football league in the world, English Premier League. And they did so with still two games left.

The wait for the ‘fairy tale ending’ of the ‘beautiful story’ is over. The biggest underdog story in recent times has met the ending everyone was hoping for.

It is their maiden top-flight title for the 132-year-old club. Some would have wanted it to happen when Claudio Ranieri’s unsung heroes were out playing, but who is to complain? It is the first time that the English top-flight has first-time winners since Nottingham Forest in 1978.

All eyes were on Monday night’s fixture between defending champions Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, the challengers, hoping to write the final chapter in the Leicester story. Spurs needed a win to keep the title race alive, and looked determined as they took the lead in the first half through the league’s top-scorer Harry Kane in the 35th minute.

Nine minutes later, Spurs made it 2-0 with a strike from Heung Min Son. With the kind of season Chelsea have endured so far, it looked like the final sprint of the race will last at least till next weekend.

But Spurs have never won a London derby at the Stamford Bridge, and they didn’t change that on Monday. Thirteen minutes into the second-half, Gary Cahill scored for the hosts and all hell broke loose. Chelsea started playing as they should have creating troubles regularly for the Spurs’ back line.

After persistent attack for almost 25 minutes, the inevitable happened. Eden Hazard scored a brilliant goal with seven minutes on the clock. The score line read 2-2, and 100 miles away the city of Leicester erupted.

For the second year running, Hazard sealed the title with his goal albeit for Leicester this time, not for his club like last year.

Two draws, different upshots

First, Leicester needed to try and seal the title with a win on Sunday when they visited Manchester United at the Old Trafford. They went a goal down early in the eighth minute with Anthony Martial scoring for the home team; it was the first time Leicester had conceded inside ten minutes this season. But as they proved numerous times in last eight months, Leicester bounced back strongly and scored the equalizer within ten minutes through Wes Morgan’s header.

They played out another 1-1 draw with United, and extended their lead over Spurs to eight points. Leicester coming from behind draw showed the resilience of the side, a trait which proved beneficial in snatching points against big teams during the long season.

The other draw on late Monday night between Spurs and Chelsea drew a different picture altogether. Spurs led Chelsea by two goals at half-time but wasted the advantage in the second-half and conceded two goals to shatter the narrow possibility they had. It is results like these which have hampered Spurs in their quest to claiming their first title since 1961. They had the chance to decrease the gap last week too, but came up with a lackluster 1-1 draw against the lowly West Bromwich Albion.

And now a team with 5,000:1 odd at the start of the season has re-written the history and yes, Leicester is the new champion of English football. Their fans, who stood behind them like rocks throughout the season, can cheer now.