The season can't get any madder, you tell yourself, and then you turn on the telly and there's Andrea Bocelli singing Nessun Dorma in the middle of the pitch at the King Power Stadium with Claudio Ranieri standing beside him and the crowd humming along and Claudio fighting back the tears and Andrea whipping off his jacket to reveal a Leicester City shirt with Bocelli printed on the back and the crowd going mad and Claudio almost evaporating.
And then Jamies Carragher and Redknapp having to analyse what they’d just seen and they’re kind of like ‘eh. . .’
If you’d recounted the scene to a Garda you’d have been told to step out of the car. Pronto.
Mind you, Claudio had his work cut out to quieten the crowd when Andrea started crooning, most of them perhaps too young to recognise Nessun Dorma as the seminal football tune written for the BBC's Italia '90 coverage (Culture Dept: It's an aria from the final act of Puccini's opera Turandot and was written in 1924, you eejit).
Fast forward
Think of it this way, N’Golo Kante was about 10 months away from being born when
Nessun Dorma
was composed (Culture Dept: That would make him 92).
It was when Andrea launched in to his second tune that you worried no one had told him a match needed to be played, although in light of Everton's performance Roberto Martinez might have been happy enough if he'd kept singing all night and the contest had to be postponed.
Tune number two was Time To Say Goodbye, which put a brief dampener on the festivities, the crowd looking nervously towards the tunnel lest N'Golo and Riyad Mahrez emerge in Barcelona shirts to perform a farewell lap of honour.
But happily, they arrived in Leicester blue and it was business as usual, the Everton defence – and the word is used loosely here – Vardyized within five minutes, 2-0 down by half-time.
“Watching Leicester is like watching a team in fast forward,” said Jamie C at the break, which is very true, rewind them at x30 when they’re counter-attacking and only then do they look like Manchester United.
“Everton are in slow motion,” added Jamie C, which was true too, their faithful seemingly wanting Roberto’s exit to be fast forwarded x60.
Claudio's position is a touch more secure. "How was that then?" David Jones asked him after the game, both hands on the trophy. "Ah, not bad," he smiled, his emotions possibly spent during Andrea's gig.
"I officially believe in miracles," said Alan Smith, who admitted the club he once played for was no longer recognisable to him, there being a time a half decent run in the Rumbelows Cup would have resulted in an open-top bus parade.
And then Martin O’Neill came along and they won the League Cup twice, and there they thought their glory days would end.
As another former player of theirs, Neil Lennon, put it recently: "We won't see this again – 5,000/1 to win the league, it's amazing! What are the odds?!" Um.
Underpants
Time for a quick on-pitch chat with assistant manager
Steve Walsh
, the man credited with bringing Kante to the club. Jamie C doffed his cap to Walsh who told him that when “people ask how many do we play in midfield, I say we play three – Drinkwater who sits, and Kante either side”. Purr.
On to Match of the Day and Gary Lineker still had his trousers on, the underpants moment not descending upon us until the first programme of next season. You can only hope it doesn't start a trend, like, say, Pat Spillane threatening to do the same if Kerry don't win the All-Ireland.
“Where do you go from here, Claudio?” he asked. “Make sure Leicester stay up next season, or win the Champions League?”
“The fans are dreaming – keepa dreaming! Why wake up?” said Claudio.
Dilly-ding, dilly-dong.
