From across the pond there are a couple of tendencies I see in English football that Leicester runs against. The most  obvious is that Pearson wasn&#x27;t sacked when it looked like Leicester was going down last season. The &quot;great escape&quot; was more unusual for going against conventional wisdom than for the run of form.<p>The more subtle is that their squad does not reflect the English fixation on player pedigree and that fixation is exactly where moneyball offers an advantage. Vardy is a prime example of what I would call the Rickie Lambert problem, players who score lots of goals not considered for the Three Lions unless they&#x27;re fortunate enough to play in the Premier League -- for both Vardy and Lambert, it was only after their teams earned promotion to top flight that they were deemed quality.<p>Despite his current form, Vardy is on the bubble for the Euros behind forwards in poor form but of pedigree, Sterling, Sturrage, Rooney, Walcott, Wellbeck. Good players all, and several hundred million in transfer value.<p>Moneyball happens at the ownership level because that&#x27;s where the money and vanity concentrates. Hiring Ranieri and sacking Pearson during the summer reflects sophisticated and unconventional footballing philosophy. Not splurging in the past to transfer windows does too. Maintaining continuity is again against footballing tradition, one needs only look at the post-Fergeson chaos in Manchester to see the price of discontinuity.<p>Leicester staying up this year means they collect on the new TV contract. Finishing top of the league means their slice of cake is bigger with UEFA Champion&#x27;s League group stage eurobucks for icing. If that ain&#x27;t moneyball, it will do until moneyball shows up.