LEICESTER, England -- The last month of the season passed slow and painful in Leicester, a former textile mill town surrounded by rolling green hills. At a hotel on the outskirts of town, near a Pizza Hut and a shopping mall, a few of the Leicester City players hung out the night before a home game against Swansea City. One of them, a defender named Danny Simpson, did the math.
"Five points clear," he said. "Four games to go."
The players were close enough to winning the Premier League that they already felt nostalgic about their teammates, imagining seeing each other in 20 years at reunions and memorials; one of them, star striker Jamie Vardy, is getting married after the season and invited the team to the ceremony and the reception.