International

Leicester City have secured one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time after winning the Premier League title last night.

After starting the season as 5,000-1 outsiders to lift the trophy, Leicester have completed a fairytale campaign with the first top-flight title of their 132-year history.

Claudio Ranieri’s remarkable achievement was confirmed after Tottenham Hotspur’s failure to beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, sparking wild scenes of celebration in the house of Jamie Vardy, who had invited the squad to Melton Mowbray home to watch the match.

Ranieri has lost only three league games this season and delivered a brilliant response to the critics who questioned his appointment in July, succeeding Nigel Pearson after Leicester’s heroic escape from relegation.This is also his first major league title, at the age of 64, after a string of near misses with previous clubs Chelsea, Juventus and Monaco.

Ranieri said: “I’m so proud. I’m happy for my players, for the chairman, for the staff at Leicester City, all our fans and the Leicester community. It’s an amazing feeling and I’m so happy for everyone.

“I never expected this when I arrived. I’m a pragmatic man, I just wanted to win match after match and help my players to improve week after week. Never did I think too much about where it would take us.

“The players have been fantastic. Their focus, their determination, their spirit has made this possible. Every game they fight for each other and I love to see this in my players. They deserve to be champions.”

Vardy was earlier named as the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year. He said: “It’s an unbelievable feeling, I’ve never known anything like it. We were scrapping to stay in the league last season and on Saturday we’ll be lifting the trophy. That gives you an idea of how much hard work has gone into this season from every single player and member of staff.

     “It’s the biggest achievement in the history of a great club and we all feel privileged to be part of it. It’s even more special to have done it with these lads. Every minute of hard work we’ve put in on the training pitch has been worth it for this moment.”

Leicester have also qualified for the Champions League for the first time in their history, and the club’s Thai owners Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and son Top were at Stamford Bridge last night to watch the pivotal match.

Vichai, the billionaire who owns the King Power duty free business, had boldly insisted two years ago that a top-five finish before 2017 was the target, but can never have envisaged such an outcome as this.

Last season Leicester spent 140 days at the bottom of the league and only survived after a remarkable run of seven wins in the last nine games. Pearson’s controversial departure in June, which came shortly after his son James was sacked along with two other young players, following a racist sex tape filmed on the post-season tour of Thailand, had raised fears of another relegation scrap.

Yet the season has been a revelation under Ranieri, leaving the likes of last season’s champions Chelsea, Arsenal and the two Manchester clubs as specks in their rear view mirrors. Leicester have been top of the league since Jan 23, when they beat Stoke City 3-0 at home.

Wes Morgan, the club captain, said: “It’s the best feeling of my career and I couldn’t be prouder that it’s as part of this team. Everyone’s worked so hard for this, nobody believed we could do it, but here we are, Premier League champions and deservedly so.

I’ve never known a spirit like the one between these boys, we’re like brothers. People saw it last season when everyone expected us to be relegated, but we fought back to prove people wrong. This season’s been a continuation of that. We’ve built on the momentum, but I don’t think anyone believed it would come to this. Saturday [the home game against Everton] can’t come quickly enough. I can’t wait to get my hands on the trophy.”

Leicester’s former striker Gary Lineker described the title win as “the biggest sporting shock of my lifetime” and is now expected to present Match of the Day in his underpants, after making a promise earlier in the season.

Ranieri had said he would not even watch the Chelsea v Spurs match as he was flying back to England after a short trip to Italy to have dinner with his 96-year-old mother Renata.

The Italian spoke with Guus Hiddink, the Chelsea manager, shortly after the final whistle of the 2-2 draw and is said to have been in tears.

Asked whether Ranieri sounded emotional, Hiddink added: “Yes. I didn’t see any tears because it wasn’t a Facetime conversation. But his voice was trembling a bit, yes.

“He said thanks five times. Not much else because the emotion was going up.”

Vardy, the England international, had the majority of his squad at his house and videos of their celebrations went viral last night.

Leicester’s Wales international Andy King, meanwhile, has become the first player to win the Premier League, Championship and League One title with the same club.

King said: “I thought I’d seen everything with this club, but I never thought I’d see this. It’s difficult to put into words. The players deserve it, the gaffer and the staff deserve it, and the fans deserve it.

"It has been an unbelievable season."