Advertisement

Well played, Foxes: Leicester completes the latest greatest upset sports season ever

Chris Young

 

Leicester City’s rise, from barely avoiding relegation a year ago to Premier League champions this season, has established a new standard for longshot glory. At the start of the season they were quoted at 5,000-to-1 odds to win the league against their well-heeled rivals. And Monday they clinched the title with two weeks to spare, sparking hosannas from all corners no matter what the allegiances because all the world loves an underdog (excepting perhaps the British bookies, on the hook for record payoffs).

Sports is full of one-off one-on-one victories (Buster Douglas, anyone?) or individual sports’ lightning in a bottle types (Ben Curtis, c’mon down) but surprise championships in team sports decided over the course of a long season or tournament are rare beasts indeed. And none have ever come in at 5,000-to-1, which rockets Leicester’s Foxes to No. 1 in the pantheon rounded out by the rest of this top 10:

Greece wins 2004 Euro

They were an unfashionable 150/1 longshot to start, but by the end their simple formula for victory -- grab a set-piece goal, then go airtight with the organization -- was enough to get them all the way to raising the trophy in Lisbon and spark one Hellas of a party at home.

The Miracle on Ice

Al Michaels’ “Do you believe in miracles?” call is what everyone remembers from the 1980 Olympics. What’s been somewhat forgotten is that after beating the heavily favoured Soviets, the USA! USA! USA! needed another victory, against Finland, to win gold in Lake Placid.

The Miracle Mets

They’d never had a winning season, were 100/1 longshots as the ‘69 season began and were 9 ½ games behind the Cubs well into August. But the Amazin’s, as they also became known, inhaled the poor, goat-cursed Cubbies and went on a huge run all the way to their first World Series championship,

North Carolina State ‘83

The Wolfpack lost 10 games but also were masters of the biggest tests, upsetting Virginia to win the ACC and get into the NCAA tournament as a No. 6 seed, from which point Jim Valvano's team never stopped with the giant-killing right up to a heart-stopping two-point win over Houston’s Phi Slamma Jamma outfit in the final.

The Greatest Show on Turf

They were 300/1 longshots and looked like a bad bet at that when Kurt Warner took over at quarterback late in the preseason of the St. Louis Rams circa 1999. Warner took them all the way to a 13-win season  and was Super Bowl MVP in the Rams’ championship win over Tennessee.

The 1991 Minnesota Twins

The first team to go from last the previous season to World Series champions, the Twins bested another longshot in the Atlanta Braves in the Fall Classic, after starting the season as 500/1 outsiders.

USSR 1972 basketball gold

A blatant officiating controversy on the final (re)play, and nearly 50 years later the USA’s sliver medals remain unclaimed in a Swiss vault -- the Soviets’ victory over the Americans in Munich that came in riding a 63-game win streak was the biggest and most contentious Olympic gold medal surprise ever.

Broadway Joe: "I guarantee it"

There was no surprise in January ‘69 that the New York Jets were part of a championship game referred to for the first time as the Super Bowl. But the Jets were AFL, against the the blueblooded NFL- representing Colts, and 18-point underdogs. “We’re going to win - I guarantee it,” said Jets QB Joe Namath before directing the upset.

The 1967 Maple Leafs

There have been biggest Stanley Cup-winning longshots - the 1938 Blackhawks, who won all of 14 games, then knocked off the Canadiens in the final, for one -- but the Leafs’ collection of creaking elders qualified fourth in the NHL’s last season as a six-team league then rolled to a title that remains their last.