Published on 12:00 AM, March 14, 2017

UEFA Champions League

Sevilla fear resurgent Leicester City

Leicester City star Jamie Vardy (R) takes part in a team training session at the club's training ground yesterday on the eve of their Champions League round of 16 second leg match against Sevilla. Photo: AFP

Remember Claudio Ranieri? The man who penned the most romantic story in soccer's annals by making Leicester City English champions and who walked away from Sevilla's stadium last month believing he could write another in the Champions League.

Well, if a week is a long time in football, three weeks between last-16 legs in Europe's elite competition is a positive eternity with Ranieri already fondly consigned to history.

It is to the chagrin of many in Leicester that their Italian folk hero has gone, denied the opportunity to try to guide them into the quarter-finals at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday.

Instead, in his old assistant Craig Shakespeare, who on Sunday was handed the manager's job until the end of the season, a city -- and an impatient club board -- now trusts.

At 2-1 down and with Jamie Vardy's away goal offering a raft to cling to on a night when Leicester were outplayed, Ranieri had not unreasonably felt the result might be the turning point in a woeful season.

Alas for the Italian he was right. The next day Leicester's Thai owners ditched Ranieri and from that moment the entire complexion of this knockout tie was transformed.

After the 'Shakespearean' age dawned, Leicester managed to find fresh belief to chisel out two crucial Premier League wins that have eased them away from the relegation zone.