2015-16 vs Manchester City (1-0)

Lore & Background

The draw meant Leicester missed the opportunity to maintain their position at the top of the table, as Arsenal, who beat Bournemouth 2–0 the day before, moved to first on goal difference.

In Their Own Story

The floodlights hummed their low electric note over the King Power. The grass was wet from a drizzle that had stopped an hour before kickoff, and the pitch glistened under the lights like dark glass. In the away dugout, the City players stretched and muttered in their own quiet rituals. In the home tunnel, the smell of deep heat and nervous sweat hung thick in the air. Ranieri stood with his hands clasped behind his back, saying little. He did not need to. They had done this before, in a hundred smaller ways, against a hundred smaller opponents. But tonight the opponent was different. Tonight the weight of a season, of a city, of a thousand whispered 'what if' hung on ninety minutes of football.

Okazaki felt the corner kick coming before the ball left the boot. He had been tracking the flight, had timed his run, had felt the weight of the centre-back on his shoulder. The ball dropped. He rose. The world narrowed to a point of white leather and a patch of net. His forehead connected. The ball hissed past the keeper's outstretched palm and kissed the back of the net.

And then — the sound. Not a cheer, exactly. A roar. A physical, chest-filling, bone-shaking roar that seemed to come from the ground itself, from the terraces, from the sky. Okazaki turned, arms raised, and for a moment the noise was so total that he could not hear his own teammates shouting his name. He could only feel the vibration in his teeth, in his sternum, in the soles of his boots. The city was alive. The city was, for one impossible, luminous evening, the city of champions.

Reader's Guide

This was Leicester's last game of the 2015 calendar year. The result ended a nine-match unbeaten run for the Foxes, which had been snapped by a 1–0 loss to Liverpool on Boxing Day.

Did You Know?

• The match was a 0–0 draw, not a 1–0 Leicester win as previously recorded.
• Leicester had beaten Manchester City 3–1 earlier in February 2016 at the Etihad Stadium.