PBS高端访谈:英超莱斯特城是如何完成不可能任务的?

 HARI SREENIVASAN: Now an underdog story for the ages.

The English soccer team Leicester City came into this season as overwhelming long shots, but now, after defying all the odds¹, exit as their country's overall football champions.

The anticipation² built, and then players from Leicester City erupted in cheers, celebrating the team's first league title ever after 132 years.

The Foxes were a 5,000-to-1 shot, but they won when second-place Tottenham played to a tie in its game on Monday. With that, the party spilled over into the streets of Leicester.

MAN: I have been waiting for this for 40 years of supporting Leicester City. It's unbelievable. And we have done it.

MAN: I mean, the whole world knows who we are now. That's important. Maybe the Americans can learn to pronounce Leicester properly as well.

HARI SREENIVASAN: It's been an improbable run for a team that had barely avoided demotion from the English Premier³ League, the country's top circuit. Winning the title was an even longer shot than the U.S. hockey team's miracle win over the Soviet⁴ Union in the 1980 Olympics.

Much of the team's success has been attributed to its journeyman manager Claudio Ranieri. But he said today the credit belongs to his players.

QUESTION: How have you done it, Claudio? What has been the secret to Leicester's success this season?

CLAUDIO RANIERI, Manager, Leicester City Football Club: I don't know. I don't know the secret. I think the players, their heart, their soul, how they played.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Leicester has two games left to play, but those are now a formality. The title also guarantees the team a spot in next year's All-European Champions League Tournament.

For more on this unlikely season and the people who made it happen, we are joined from London by Andi Thomas, who covers soccer for SB Nation, an all-sports Web site.

So, help us understand how big a moment this is for this city, this town.

ANDI THOMAS, SB Nation: It's an absolutely massive moment for Leicester the town and for Leicester the football club.

It is something that absolutely nobody involved with the club or outside the club would have expected when the season kicked off. They'd have been hoping for, at best, a solid mid-table finish to avoid a relegation⁵ struggle, like last season.

So, yes, this will have been as surprising as it will have been kind of moving.

英超莱斯特城是如何完成不可能任务的?

HARI SREENIVASAN: And did the momentum⁶ build up throughout the rest of the U.K. as this potential grew closer?

ANDI THOMAS: I think so. I think there's a lot to like about Leicester as a — from a neutral perspective.

There's the unlikeliness of the story. There's the fact that Claudio Ranieri is a very popular personality and manager in general. And some of the players, not all of them, but some of the players are quite, quite easy to warm to in some ways.

So, yes, I think there's been a lot of — a lot of outside interest, plus just the novelty of seeing someone outside the normal clubs in with a shot of winning the title is something to celebrate.

HARI SREENIVASAN: How crucial was the manager in all this? This is a person who has been at big league — or big clubs before.

ANDI THOMAS: Yes.

And he seems to have been exceptionally important for the club. He came in — he was very much a surprise appointment. There was a lot of skepticism about whether he — whether he was the right person to struggle against relegation, because that's what they're expecting to do.

And, instead, yes, he seems to have — because he inherited a squad⁷ that had just survived relegation last season, and he seemed to have carried on momentum from that improbable escape and just made everyone — united them as a team and as a unit.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And this isn't a club that has big superstars that are paid lavish⁸ sums of money. This is a pretty average group of guys.

ANDI THOMAS: Yes.

I mean, by the standards of anyone outside football, they're extremely well-paid professionals, but by the standards of the league they're competing in, they are very much from the kind of the bottom rung in terms of the wages.

The Premier League has never really been won by anybody outside kind of the top-wage-paying clubs. So, that — again, that's just another factor that makes is a surprise victory.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And, you know, your oddsmakers are not wrong that often. When somebody decides to place 5,000-to-1 odds against the team doing this, what happened? How did they get the math so wrong?

ANDI THOMAS: Well, I mean, the 5,000-to-1 odds, that's longer odds than the Loch Ness Monster existing. That's longer odds than Elvis being found alive.

ANDI THOMAS: It was very much a novelty bet, kind of, if you want to throw 10 pounds away in a symbolic⁹ way, that's how you do it.

And the fact that — the fact that it became a live bet and a possibility is unprecedented¹⁰.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Is there a class dimension to this? I mean, are these — is this a working-class town, I mean, from the folks we heard from, vs. some of the elite¹¹ clubs and the fan base that they draw?

ANDI THOMAS: Certainly, I think it's fair to say that, in the big clubs in the Premier League, they market themselves very aggressively as global clubs.

Manchester United has sponsors from all around the world. Manchester City have tie-ins New York and Melbourne, where, in Leicester, it very much feels like a triumph of the club and the town, in a slightly old-fashioned way, kind of the way English football used to be, before it became stretched at the top by the money of the Premier League.

So, yes, there definitely is the element that this quite — it's quite refreshing¹², refreshingly¹³ old-fashioned aspect to it.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Finally, any of these players going to go on and transfer to other clubs now that their stock has improved?

ANDI THOMAS: You would expect big clubs to be chasing them, certainly.

I think Riyad Mahrez and N'Golo Kante will both — there will be big bids for them over the summer. Whether they go or not, I don't know. Leicester, the chance to go into the Champions League, this club is — the players are clearly quite keen on one another and work very well as a team.

So, whether they will — hopefully, they will — you know, they will give it at least one shot in the Champions League before they accept the big offers and move on.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Andi Thomas from SB Nation, thanks so much for joining us.

ANDI THOMAS: Thank you.

1 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

2 anticipation   

n.预期，预料，期望

参考例句：

• We waited at the station in anticipation of her arrival.我们在车站等着，期待她的到来。
• The animals grew restless as if in anticipation of an earthquake.各种动物都变得焦躁不安，像是感到了地震即将发生。

3 premier   

adj.首要的；n.总理，首相

参考例句：

• The Irish Premier is paying an official visit to Britain.爱尔兰总理正在对英国进行正式访问。
• He requested that the premier grant him an internview.他要求那位总理接见他一次。

4 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

5 relegation   

n.驱逐，贬黜；降级

参考例句：

• Liaoning team lost this game, is still deeply avoid relegation zone. 辽宁队本场失利后，仍然深陷保级区。 来自互联网
• In society, relegation is based on your income. 社会上的规类是以你的收入为基准。 来自互联网

6 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

7 squad   

n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组

参考例句：

• The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.班长命令战士们原地踏步。
• A squad is the smallest unit in an army.班是军队的最小构成单位。

8 lavish   

adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍

参考例句：

• He despised people who were lavish with their praises.他看不起那些阿谀奉承的人。
• The sets and costumes are lavish.布景和服装极尽奢华。

9 symbolic   

adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的

参考例句：

• It is symbolic of the fighting spirit of modern womanhood.它象征着现代妇女的战斗精神。
• The Christian ceremony of baptism is a symbolic act.基督教的洗礼仪式是一种象征性的做法。

10 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

11 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

12 refreshing   

adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的

参考例句：

• I find it'so refreshing to work with young people in this department.我发现和这一部门的青年一起工作令人精神振奋。
• The water was cold and wonderfully refreshing.水很涼，特别解乏提神。

13 refreshingly   

adv.清爽地，有精神地

参考例句：

• Hers is less workmanlike than the other books and refreshingly unideological. 她的书不像其它书那般精巧，并且不涉及意识形态也让人耳目一新。 来自互联网
• Skin is left refreshingly clean with no pore-clogging residue. 皮肤留下清爽干净，没有孔隙堵塞残留。 来自互联网