Leicester City
The club
Leicester City Football Club were formed in 1884 as Leicester Fosse by former pupils of Wyggeston School, joined the Football League in 1894, and took the Leicester City name in 1919 when the city gained its official status. The club played at Filbert Street for 111 years before moving to the Walkers Stadium in 2002, renamed the King Power Stadium in 2011 after the Thai duty-free group King Power bought the club under Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha; capacity is 32,259. The traditional home kit is royal blue shirts with white shorts, the club is nicknamed the Foxes, and the badge, adopted in 1948, carries a fox over a cinquefoil taken from the city's coat of arms.
The current head coach is Russell Martin, appointed on 15 June 2026 on a three-year contract to lead the club in League One following back-to-back relegations. He succeeded a chaotic run of appointments: Gary Rowett, brought in on 18 February 2026 on a short-term deal to try to save Championship status; Andy King, the former Leicester midfielder, as interim from 25 January to 17 February 2026; Martí Cifuentes, sacked on 25 January 2026 after a home defeat to Oxford United; Ruud van Nistelrooy, who took over on 1 December 2024 and stepped down by mutual agreement on 27 June 2025; Ben Dawson, caretaker for a week in November 2024; Steve Cooper, in charge for the 2024/25 Premier League season from its start until 24 November 2024; and Enzo Maresca, who won the Championship title in 2023/24 before leaving for Chelsea.
Recent seasons
Leicester were relegated from the Premier League in 2022/23 despite having the highest squad value of any club outside the "Big Six", then came straight back up as Championship champions in 2023/24 under Enzo Maresca, setting a club record for the best start to a league season. Back in the Premier League for 2024/25, they were relegated again, confirmed on 20 April 2025. In 2025/26 they suffered back-to-back relegations: they finished 23rd in the Championship with 31 points, a total further cut by a six-point deduction imposed on 5 February 2026 for breaching Profit and Sustainability Rules by £20.8 million over the 2023/24 financial period, and conceded 68 goals, the worst defensive record in EFL Championship history. Relegation was mathematically confirmed on 21 April 2026 after a 2-2 draw with Hull City and ratified by the EFL on 24 April once West Bromwich Albion's parallel PSR case was resolved. It put Leicester in League One for 2026/27, only the second time in the club's history they have played outside the top two divisions of English football, the earlier occasion having ended with promotion back at the end of 2008/09.
Honours and landmarks
Leicester have won the Premier League/First Division title once, in 2015/16, and the FA Cup once, in 2021. They have won the League Cup three times, in 1964, 1997 (after a replay at Hillsborough) and 2000, and the FA Community Shield twice, in 1971 and 2021. They have won the second-tier Championship or its predecessors seven times, most recently in 2023/24. The 2015/16 Premier League title, won under Claudio Ranieri at odds of 5,000-1 at the start of the season, is widely regarded as one of the greatest upsets in sporting history; Leicester finished ten points clear of second-placed Arsenal having been battling relegation twelve months earlier. The FA Cup was won on 15 May 2021, Leicester's first success in that competition after four previous final defeats, beating Chelsea 1-0 at Wembley through a long-range Youri Tielemans strike, with the 20,000 crowd the largest at a UK football ground since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Leicester also hold the record for the biggest away win in English top-flight history, 9-0 at Southampton on 25 October 2019.
Notable scorelines
The 9-0 win at Southampton on 25 October 2019 is Leicester's record victory and matched the biggest away win in English top-flight history, equalling Manchester United's 9-0 win at Ipswich Town in 1995. Leicester's heaviest defeat is 12-0 away to Nottingham Forest on 21 April 1909, when the club were then known as Leicester Fosse and were relegated from the First Division that season. In the FA Cup final of 2021, Leicester beat Chelsea 1-0. In the 2021 Community Shield they beat Manchester City 1-0, and in the 1971 Community Shield they beat Liverpool 1-0 through a Steve Whitworth goal.
European record
Leicester's first European campaign came in 2016/17, entering the Champions League as reigning Premier League champions. They won their group with 13 points from four wins, a draw and a defeat, beating Club Brugge 3-0 away on matchday one and going through with a game to spare. In the round of 16 they beat Sevilla, losing the first leg 2-1 away before winning 2-0 at the King Power Stadium through goals from Wes Morgan and Marc Albrighton, going through 3-2 on aggregate. In the quarter-finals they lost to Atlético Madrid, beaten 1-0 in Madrid by a Griezmann penalty and drawing 1-1 in the second leg, going out 2-1 on aggregate. Leicester's other major European run came in the Europa Conference League in 2021/22, when they reached the semi-finals before losing to Roma. Full details of their other European qualifying-round exits were not established from the sources read here.
Quotes
Claudio Ranieri's catchphrase during the 2015/16 title-winning season, "dilly ding, dilly dong", came from an imaginary bell he said he rang in training whenever he felt his players' concentration was drifting; it became one of the enduring images of that campaign. Beyond that, no other directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Russell Martin is the head coach, in his first season since his June 2026 appointment. Leicester are playing in League One, the third tier of English football, for only the second time in the club's history. As of 5 September 2026 they sat 18th in the table with five points from five matches, one win, two draws and two defeats, four goals scored and seven conceded. Their best result so far is a 2-0 home win over Plymouth Argyle on 1 September 2026; their heaviest defeat is 0-4 at home to Oxford United on 5 September 2026. They have also played in the EFL Cup, reaching the second round with one win and one defeat from two matches, and are in the group stage of the EFL Trophy; their FA Cup campaign had not yet begun.
The summer rebuild for life in League One brought in the striker Emil Riis, the winger Wes Burns, the attacking midfielder Conor Chaplin and the Finnish defender Ilari Kangasniemi among others, while Bilal El Khannouss left for Stuttgart for a reported £15.3 million and Abdul Fatawu for Ipswich Town for a reported £20 million. Jamie Vardy, the forward who was at the club throughout the 2015/16 title win, left Leicester in the summer of 2025, meaning no player from that title-winning squad remains at the club. Leicester's precise Profit and Sustainability position going into 2026/27, and any further points-deduction risk, was not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_City_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Leicester_City_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Leicester_City_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024%E2%80%9325_Leicester_City_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Leicester_City_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_FA_Cup_final https://www.lcfc.com/history-honours-men-premierleague https://www.lcfc.com/history-honours-men-communityshield https://www.lcfc.com/history-honours-men-leaguecup https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2019622--leicester-vs-sevilla/ https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2019629--atleti-vs-leicester/ https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2019635--leicester-vs-atleti/ https://www.espn.com/soccer/match/_/gameId/601060/leicester-city-chelsea https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/leicester-city-crushes-southampton-9-0-for-biggest-win-in-english-top-flight-history/ https://www.footballsite.co.uk/History/Nottingham%20Forest%2012%20Leicester.htm https://fbref.com/en/squads/a2d435b3/Leicester-City-Stats https://www.lcfc.com/media-article/russell-martin-appointed-leicester-city-first-team-manager-lcfc-press-release
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.