Leicester 15/16 — The Miracle: Full Squad & Ratings

Leicester City 2015/16 season — all 18 players rated, best XI, and how to draft them in 38-0.

Leicester City 2015/16 — Season Story

Leicester City's 2015/16 Premier League title remains the greatest upset in the history of English football — a 5000-to-1 outsider, given the same odds as Elvis Presley being found alive, winning the league by ten points. Claudio Ranieri's team did it with a simple, devastating formula: defend deep, win the ball, and release Jamie Vardy in behind. There was nothing complicated about it, and nothing any opponent could do about it.

The season was defined by streaks and moments. Vardy scored in eleven consecutive league games, breaking Ruud van Nistelrooy's Premier League record, before a 1-1 draw at home to Manchester United ended the run on 28 November. Riyad Mahrez played like a man from another planet — the PFA Player of the Year, the first African player to win the award. And in the middle of it all, a small, tireless midfielder named N'Golo Kante ran more than anyone else in the league and changed the course of the season.

Leicester led the table for a remarkable 147 days of the season and were never seriously challenged after Christmas. The chasing pack — Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City — all stumbled at different moments, but Leicester's genius was that they never did. They lost just three games all season, and their run of clean sheets and late goals became the stuff of legend: eleven of their wins came by a single goal.

The title was confirmed on 2 May 2016, when Tottenham failed to beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, and the players watched from Jamie Vardy's house, celebrating with the trophy that had seemed a practical joke at the start of the season. The 2015/16 Leicester squad is not the highest-rated in the 38-0 pool — far from it — but no squad in the game carries a better story.

5000 to 1: The Odds and the Laugh

Before the season, bookmakers priced Leicester at 5000-1 to win the title — the same odds as discovering the Loch Ness Monster or finding Elvis alive. They had finished 14th the previous season, survived on the final day of the campaign before, and had just lost their manager to the Greece job. The idea of them winning the league was not a prediction; it was a punchline.

The punchline lasted all season. Leicester were top of the table on Christmas Day, a position that in the previous 25 Premier League seasons had always produced the champion — and still nobody quite believed it. Even in the final weeks, with the lead at seven points, pundits kept waiting for the collapse. It never came.

Vardy's Record Run

Jamie Vardy had been playing non-league football at Fleetwood Town in 2012. By November 2015 he was breaking a Premier League record that had stood for twelve years. His goal at Newcastle on 21 November made it eleven consecutive league matches with a goal — one more than Ruud van Nistelrooy managed in 2003 — and the run turned him into the most talked-about striker in Europe.

The run ended in the 1-1 draw with Manchester United at the King Power Stadium, but Vardy's season continued at the same relentless level: 24 league goals in total, a Golden Boot shared with Harry Kane, and a style of play — running in behind, finishing first time — that the whole league knew was coming and still could not stop.

The Counter-Attacking Machine

Leicester's tactics were gloriously unfashionable. Ranieri's side sat deep, invited pressure, and then exploded forward in seconds: Kante winning the ball, Drinkwater finding a forward, Mahrez or Vardy finishing. Their goals-per-shot ratio was the best in the league, because they almost never took bad shots — every attack was a high-quality chance.

Defensively they were just as clever. Wes Morgan and Robert Huth, a pairing nobody had wanted a year earlier, formed a centre-back duo that won nearly everything in the air. Kasper Schmeichel kept 15 clean sheets. And Kante — who covered more ground than any player in the division — was the reason the whole system worked: the safety net behind the press, the first line of the counter.

Key Players & Ratings

Riyad Mahrez (86 OVR) is the highest-rated player in the squad and was the PFA Player of the Year — a left-footed magician who cut inside from the right wing and scored 17 league goals. Jamie Vardy (85) and N'Golo Kante (85) are the other two elite names, with Kasper Schmeichel (84) a very good goalkeeper and Wes Morgan (81) the defensive leader.

The squad average of 78.4 is below the 80.7 pool average, which is exactly the point: this is the ultimate value squad. The three stars — Mahrez, Vardy, Kante — are genuinely elite, the supporting cast is honest but ordinary, and the tail is thin. In draft terms, this landing is about taking one of the stars and not overthinking it.

Full 18-Man Squad

Best XI — Leicester City 2015/16

The highest-rated eleven available from this squad in 38-0:

• GK Kasper Schmeichel 84 OVR
• RB Danny Simpson 77 OVR
• RCB Wes Morgan 81 OVR
• LCB Robert Huth 80 OVR
• LB Christian Fuchs 79 OVR
• CDM N'Golo Kanté 85 OVR
• RM Marc Albrighton 79 OVR
• CM Danny Drinkwater 80 OVR
• RW Riyad Mahrez 86 OVR
• ST Jamie Vardy 85 OVR
• CF Shinji Okazaki 78 OVR

Drafting This Squad in 38-0

The draft hierarchy here is short and clear: Mahrez first for most teams — elite wingers are rarer than good strikers — Vardy second if you need goals, Kante third if you lack a ball-winner, and Schmeichel fourth if you need a goalkeeper. Any of those four is a legitimate pick; anything below them is a compromise.

In Legend mode, this is a trap squad for unprepared drafters: the famous names are exactly the right picks, but the mid-tier players — Drinkwater (80), Fuchs (79), Albrighton (79) — are far worse than the stars, and the tail is 72-76. Memorise the top four and you will never waste this landing.

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