Links With The Past: Pennants From The International Champions Cup
The Club’s heritage collection contains many pennants, which, over the years, have been presented to and received by Leicester City at important fixtures such as FA Cup Finals and fixtures in the UEFA Cup, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League.
There are also many pennants which have been exchanged in pre-season friendly fixtures.
The pennants illustrated here date from the summer of 2016 when City, as Premier League champions, were invited to participate in the International Champions Cup and are a permanent reminder of Leicester's participation in the most prestigious and hectic pre-season tournament in the Club’s history.
Seventeen high-profile clubs were invited to take part, including the current champions of their respective leagues: Leicester City, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain, Barcelona and Celtic.
The other teams to be invited were Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Atlético Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Melbourne Victory, with the tournament played concurrently in Australia, China, Europe and the USA.
Each team played three matches and the winner was the club with the most points at the end of the tournament. Three points were awarded for a win and, in the event of a draw at full-time, the teams went straight to a penalty shootout. The winner gained two points and the losers picked up one point.
City’s first game, on 23 July, was against Brendan Rodgers' Celtic at Celtic Park. The score at full time was 1-1. Riyad Mahrez scored a stunning goal to put Leicester ahead before Eoghan O'Connell levelled the score. The Foxes won the penalty shoot-out 6-5.
Seven days later, a Leicester side including new signings Ahmed Musa - reportedly a new record buy from CSKA Moscow - Luis Hernández and Papy Mendy met the eventual winners of the ICC tournament, Paris Saint-Germain at the StubHub Centre in Carson, Los Angeles.
The French Champions were managed by current Villarreal manager, Unai Emery, whose side won 4-0 with goals from Edinson Cavani, Jonathan Ikone, Lucas Moura and substitute Odsonne Edouard.
The hectic schedule continued a week later. Four days before they were due to meet Manchester United in the Community Shield match at Wembley, the Foxes faced Luis Enrique’s Barcelona at the Friends’ Arena at Solna in Stockholm. Despite two fine goals from second-half substitute Musa, Claudio Ranieri’s side fell to a 4-2 defeat.