Leicester City: Dirty Dozen or Harvard Case Study?
When I saw &quot;dirty dozen&quot; in the title I thought: a mainstream article about Leicester being dosed to their eyeballs on performance enhancing drugs (controversial opinion alert).<p>Some random facts:<p>- Football is notoriously lax about drug testing. IIRC you get urine tested maybe every 6 months, if even that much. Urine tests are very easy to skirt around compared to the gold standard, which is blood tests.<p>- Leicester barely survived relegation in 2014&#x2F;15, they clung on by a single point. They&#x27;ve apparently gone from Premier League bottom feeders to world beaters in one season.<p>-Jamie Vardy, Leicester&#x27;s star striker and latest England darling ahead of the Euros in the summer, basically burst out of nowhere at 29, scoring just 5 goals in the 2014&#x2F;15 season, but an astonishing 22 goals in 2015&#x2F;16[1], including breaking the Premier League record for goals scored in consecutive games. Players are generally not know for having breakout seasons so late in their career.<p>- Leicester have a very consistent starting 11 every week over a grueling season, and been &quot;lucky&quot; with injuries. Some comments from a BBC article:<p><i>&quot;It is the Foxes who have been by far the most impressive, though, because they have been able to keep playing at a high tempo from the start to the finish of matches.</i><p><i>Leicester have scored 10 goals in the final 15 minutes of Premier League matches this season, which have earned them 12 points. The Foxes have also conceded nine goals in the final 15 minutes but only one of them has cost them points - Rudy Gestede&#x27;s equaliser for Aston Villa in January</i>.<p><i>Again, that shows whatever they are doing in training is right, because I know from experience you do not just stay that fit over many months of the season.</i><p><i>Some people have said they have been fortunate not having many injuries. But is it luck, or is it down to a really good medical staff and a training regime that keeps the players fit and at the level of fitness required to play the way they do? I don&#x27;t think it is a coincidence they have managed both.</i><p><i>Sure, you need some luck along the way too but I certainly think their fitness levels are far above most of the other top-flight teams.</i><p><i>That has made their style of play more effective, which has made them harder to beat. You cannot wear them down or just wait for them to tire.&quot;</i>[2]<p>- There&#x27;s been other PED scandals in football that have been swept under the table, even buried by judges in Spain. Here&#x27;s a great Reddit comment heavily implying that Real Madrid and Barcelona have been&#x2F;are doping[3]. When a lab in Spain was raided, Nadal&#x27;s tennis performance dropped dramatically, Barca&#x27;s form dropped, the Spanish national team&#x27;s invincible streak (2008-2010) dropped off a cliff. There&#x27;s other stuff too like Gareth Bale, who became ripped as hell quite suddenly: <i>&quot;While many of his Real Madrid team-mates were away strutting their stuff during the World Cup, it appears Gareth Bale was busy working hard in the gym. The Wales midfielder took part in Real&#x27;s training on Thursday looking rather bulky in comparison to last season.&quot;</i>[4]<p>None of this on its own <i>proves</i> anything. But if you put all what we know together: lax drug testing, huge financial incentives to dope, the romance story of an unknown club surviving relegation by one point in 2014&#x2F;15 to becoming world beaters the next season, the lack of injuries, the non-stop, almost inhuman energy levels over a long season in one of the most physically demanding football leagues, the massive FIFA scandals and the joy of a footballing romance story for the fans, you begin to wonder....<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Jamie_Vardy#Club" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Jamie_Vardy#Club</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;sport&#x2F;football&#x2F;35553082" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;sport&#x2F;football&#x2F;35553082</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;soccer&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3s9a9d&#x2F;how_prominent_is_doping_in_football_arsene_wenger&#x2F;cwv9259?context=3" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;soccer&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3s9a9d&#x2F;how_prominen...</a><p>[4] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dailymail.co.uk&#x2F;sport&#x2F;football&#x2F;article-2718823&#x2F;Real-Madrid-training-ahead-Spanish-Super-Cup-final-against-Sevilla-Cardiff.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dailymail.co.uk&#x2F;sport&#x2F;football&#x2F;article-2718823&#x2F;Re...</a>