FAIRY TALE ENDING

The Premier League has been called the most difficult league in the world. In recent years, the only teams to have prevailed in this league were from Manchester or London. However, something strange happened on the way to the title this year. Leicester City are your 2016 English Premier League Champions!

To say that Leicester's story is a fairy tale would be the understatement of the year. In fact, Leicester was in dead last much of last season and only avoided relegation (demotion to a lower league) on the last day of last season. It was no wonder then that the odds makers gave Leicester a 5000:1 chance of winning the Premier League. But the odds makers did not take into account what a new manager could do with an able-bodied team whom many other clubs had treated as cast-offs.

That manager-Claudio Ranieri-had been a journeyman, managing for almost thirty years without ever winning a domestic title. However, he unified his team and helped them to realize that they could beat any side if they just believed in themselves and worked together. Worked, they did, outrunning, outthinking, and outplaying the best teams in England. So it was quite fitting that Leicester would clinch the title with two games left in the season. That meant that they could celebrate with their fans on the penultimate game of the season-their last home game versus Everton.

Fittingly, the crowd was celebratory. Andrea Bocelli, the great Italian singer was in attendance to serenade Ranieri and the Leicester faithful with "Nessun Dorma" and "Time to Say Goodbye." Bocelli did a riff on the latter and sang, "Time to Win Again." The Foxes, as Leicester are known, obliged and ran Everton into the ground.

There was free beer and pizza for the fans, and it was a day that few who were present will ever forget.

Leicester may never win the Premier League title again, but that does not matter. For one magical season, they were head and shoulders above every team in the toughest league in the world. This story is one for the ages, and one almost needs to be pinched to remind one's self that it actually happened.

Here's to Leicester! Thanks for a season we shall not soon forget-truly one straight out of the children's books but that will go down in the history books!