Leicester City: From rejects to Premier League champions

Leicester's incredible Premier League triumph has been built around £400,000 forward Riyad Mahrez and diminutive midfielder N'Golo Kante - both relative unknowns until this season - and a striker in Jamie Vardy who was still playing non-league football four years ago.

But this squad of freebies, basement buys and unknown imports have shocked the football world.

Along the way they won the hearts of neutral fans, became household names and fully fledged international stars.

These are the stories of the 14 key players from a team that cost less than £30m to assemble, but managed to topple the Premier League's elite.

Schmeichel started his career as a Manchester City trainee. He made his senior debut on loan at Darlington in 2006 and was also loaned to Bury and Falkirk before making his debut for the Blues.

He played just three games for City in the whole of 2008 and was so far down the pecking order in January 2009 his agent enlisted the help of BBC Sport's Chris Bevan to get him a move, via our BBC transfer deadline day live text commentary.Schmeichel issued a statement expressing his "great disappointment" when Leeds accepted Leicester's offer for him in June 2011.

We don't think he regrets that now...Manchester United academy product Simpson was sent out on loan to Belgian side Royal Antwerp and Sunderland, where he won the Championship title in 2007, plus he had spells at Ipswich Town and Blackburn Rovers.

He eventually made his Premier League and European debut at Old Trafford before he joined Newcastle United in 2010. He helped the Magpies win promotion back to the Premier League and also won promotion via the play-offs after his move to QPR.

In 2014 he signed for Leicester and is now a Premier League champion. He was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend last May - a conviction he is appealing against.

The 30-year-old had been persuaded to join the Foxes by then manager Nigel Pearson, who was sacked in June. Fuchs said he was lying on a beach in Antigua when he was told Pearson had been sacked. "I'd spoken to a coach, he'd convinced me to go there, and I will never have one training session with him. It was very weird."

Fuchs has 46,000 followers on Twitter, whom he entertains with his dressing room insights and games such as Russian egg roulette with team-mate Jamie Vardy.

(BBC)