It all started with the hunchback king, Richard III. He was killed during a battle in 1485 when he was only 32 years old. We know this because his skeleton was unearthed by archaeologists in a car park in Leicester, four years ago.

From his DNA we know that he had blue eyes, suffered severe scoliosis and was not quite faithful to his wife. But all this is trivial, for what matters is that since King Rich was ceremonially reburied in Leicester cathedral in March of last year, something extraordinary started happening: the Leicester football team started winning.

They escaped relegation by a whisker and at the start of the season, bookmakers had Leicester at a terrible-but-predictable 5,000-1 to win the Premier League.

Just to put things in context, according to bookmakers there was more of a chance that Kim Kardashian becomes the next US president than Leicester winning the league. The wager was in fact taken up by only 12 punters.

But then on the league opening day in August, Leicester team beat Sunderland 4-2, and they just kept winning, and winning, and winning.

Last week they were confirmed champions and the handful of men who bet a fiver on the team they loved now have €32,000 in their pockets.

The coach. He’s a crucial key to the secret. Ranieri, 64, is no larger-than-life persona. Just a good, old, nice chap who has coached all over Europe

It is the football fairytale which has been unfolding all this season and which everyone is talking about even here (in between Panama, portfolios, infiorata and Ira). Since I share my life with men who are obsessed about football, at first I thought this Leicester-talk was just at home. But then, my unsportive friend who wins the ‘Uh? Football? What Is Football?’ award told us that the weekend before he had watched them play.

“What? You watched football?”

“Yes I watched Leicester play and win,” he said.

“What? You know about them?”

“Oh, I love their rags to riches story!”

“Hmm. Let’s test if this is true,” said another friend, “What is their nickname?”

“Foxes!” he answered before he went on to tell us in detail about every single corner and every angle of every goal they scored.

You see people are enamoured of the fact that it’s not a team where money rains on the pitch every single day that won the league. It’s not a team that has hogged the premier title for the last 20 years: it’s not Chelsea (great though they are), or Arsenal, or Manchester United, or Manchester City.

No. It is little Leicester, in the unglamorous East Midlands, “with their genial old Italian coach Claudio Ranieri, and their motley crew of unknowns and never-weres,” as one sports journalist put it. It is a team which has never won the title in its 132-year history.

“It’s like Malta winning the Eurovision,” said a friend.

“Not exactly,” I said. “Leicester never thought it possible to win, whereas every year we are convinced we’ll win.”

Which is why, everyone in England and around the world rooted for Leicester, it made us feel that dreams are possible. The great Lionel Messi tweeted: “The reason why we all love football, congratulations.” Arsenal’s manager Arsene Wenger described their ascent as “very romantic”. It is undoubtedly a feel-good underdog story which cannot compare to anything else (well, maybe… let’s talk again about this after the 2018 election).

What was the secret of their miracle? First off, they crushed the sad belief that in modern football big teams monopolise the talent and that trophies are tied to money. The entire wage cost of Leicester squad is a total of €90 million – Manchester City’s made a signing of a similar amount for Kevin de Bruyne, one single footballer. Instead, many of Leicester’s players have come from humble beginnings.

They made teamwork fashionable again. Out with the veneration of the individual star footballer, in with a star team which played a simple game: defend, counter-attack. I thought their team spirit particularly shone on Monday when the players all met at the striker’s house and together watched the Spurs draw Chelsea: the game which confirmed them as champions.

The next day, after their normal training session, they went out with their coach for a celebration lunch at an Italian restaurant in the city. The coach. He’s a crucial key to the secret. Ranieri, 64, is no larger-than-life persona in manner of Jose Mourinho or Alex Ferguson. Just a good, old, nice chap who has coached all over Europe, but never quite managed to clinch the top title. Which is what gives the story a better twist: he has proven to us that nice guys sometimes do come first and it’s not just the Trumps of this world who make it.

I watched a news feature of Ranieri in tears, as he was shown tributes from the people of Leicester – from pensioners to teenagers – they all vowed undying gratitude to the man who gave them hope and a miracle. By the end even my eyes were welling up.

What did he have to say about all this? “It means the job is good. I am very, very happy now because maybe if I won this title at the beginning of my career maybe I would forget. Now I am an old man I can feel it much better.”

Not even Walt Disney could have scripted something of the sort. It takes a happily buried king to spin such a fairytale.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti