Hlas: Leicester win like cat-riding monkey leading Derby

It occurred Monday, it may be the biggest upset in team sports history, and it wasn't mentioned in Tuesday morning's Gazette.

That's not at all meant to bite the hand that feeds me. It's been said all news is local, and 5,000-to-1 underdog Leicester City clinching England's Premier League championship surely doesn't resonate in most Eastern Iowa homes.

Still, who in this jaded, weary world doesn't still enjoy a miracle?

Monday, after Tottenham could manage only a 2-2 draw with Chelsea, Leicester City's Foxes mathematically clinched their title and left a 28-year-old employee of Cedar Rapids' Rockwell Collins in a state of giddy disbelief.

'I'm waiting for the bubble to burst,' Ben Dattilo said Tuesday. 'I'm an engineer, so if the math doesn't tell me we can win, I don't believe we're going to win.

'I'm a University of Iowa graduate and a Cubs fan, so I'm used to existential dread as a sports fan.'

Dattilo was born in Illinois, but spent four years of childhood living in a village just outside of Leicester. He pledged and kept allegiance to Leicester City despite its century-plus history of never winning the Premier League.

The 132-year-old team wasn't even in the Premier League from 2004 to 2014. If you finish in the bottom three spots of that 20-team league at the end of its 38-game schedule, you get relegated to The Championship league. The top three teams from that league at season's end are promoted to the Premier League.

Leicester City was so down it fell to the nation's third-level league for a while. It won its way back up to the second level, and clawed its way back to the Premier League in 2014. Last year, the team was horrid for several months before it won seven of its last nine matches to avoid returning to the second level.

It has a payroll about one-tenth the size of the Premier League's powerhouse franchises. There is no annual player draft to help the worst teams get better, no salary cap to stop billionaire owners of powerhouse franchises from spending wildly on global superstars. The best the Foxes' fans could ever hope for was to stay in the Premier league, never a given.

Hence, the 5,000-1 odds from English bookmakers last summer. That's like betting on a No. 15 seed to win the NCAA basketball tourney. Which has never happened, nor come remotely close to happening.

But that team would have to win just six straight games. Leicester City's title was decided on being the best of 20 teams over a 38-game season while taking a spoon to a gunfight.

'It's made mugs of all of us,' said Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore, 'and that is just the most fantastic feeling.'

Before, when he has worn his royal blue and white Leicester City shirt at soccer-watches, Dattilo would be questioned why in the world he aligned himself with that obscure team. Now, he may be falsely accused of being a front-runner. Ah, if only he had a betting slip on the Foxes to cash.

'It wouldn't be legal here,' he said.

When you can place legal wagers on English soccer in Cedar Rapids, you'll know the world truly has shrunk.

You could say Leicester City's triumph is like Eastern Michigan winning the Division I College Football Playoff or a club pro winning the U.S. Open golf tournament. Dattilo said he heard someone use a comparison he thinks is more fitting.

'Nothing compares to it from an American sports perspective,' he said. 'It's like a cat with a monkey on its back leading the Kentucky Derby.'