Friday 24 February 2017 17:25, UK
Sometimes, like last May when Leicester grabbed the Premier League title, it is easy to fall head over heels in love with football.
Fairy tales do happen. Nice guys do not always finish last.
Most days, though, the game tells you that there is no romance, no loyalty and no ideals. Nice guys get the sack regardless of what they have done for you.
Claudio Ranieri was the man who didn't just keep his head when all around were losing theirs last season, he was the one who kept smiling. He bought pizzas. He flew home to his mother in Italy. He turned the careers of journeymen players into million-pound concerns.
By sacking Ranieri, Leicester City's directors put a fairly brutal end to the notion that all that amounted to a bond that could never be broken.
We should have seen it coming but we thought that Leicester were different.
Andrea Bocelli would hardly have finished singing Nessun Dorma last May when a queue of sharp-eyed agents would have gathered rapping on the boardroom door at the King Power.
Contracts were handed out. N'Golo Kante moved on. Many others stayed but their heads had been turned. They believed their own hype.
Anytime I watched Leicester this season their decline was obvious. The intensity, the pressing, the counter-attacking urgency was gone.
In the past few weeks at the King Power, we have seen an ugly side to football. The board issued an emphatic and well deserved vote of confidence in their manager. Those words look more hollow now than even the hardened cynics among us could have imagined.
The strangest thing is that Ranieri was sacked so soon after his team had pulled off a more-than-decent result at Sevilla.
While the team has struggled in this season's Premier League, the adventure they have enjoyed in getting to the knock-out stages of the Champion League was their escape.
Jamie Vardy getting the away goal in the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan wasn't just a reminder of what Leicester could do if they pulled together, but it might also have been the corner they needed to turn in terms of morale and confidence.
Their season still has a lot of life in it. Thirteen league matches to go and a huge Champions League second-leg tie to come.
I thought it was time for the players to gird themselves for a big finish to the season. Any difficulties there might have been should have been put aside by now. Sevilla was a chance for them to start showing their pride on the field again.
Even if Leicester had taken the drop, there are many of us who feel that Ranieri had more than earned the right to decide the moment of his exit.
A few weeks back, after another defeat, Kasper Schmeichel gave a very honest interview. He firmly put the onus back on his colleagues in the dressing room. He hoped to draw a response. He will be dismayed with the answer his team-mates provided.
Kasper said his team-mates needed to "stand up and be counted because this season from top to bottom hasn't been good enough…we are reigning champions and quite frankly it's been embarrassing."
Well, it just got even more embarrassing. They have let down a great man who gave them their most memorable season.
How has success changed Leicester? It's only two years since these big-name stars were in a far worse situation. At the start of April 2015, they were anchored at the bottom of the Premier League with seven points between them and safety.
Leicester stood by Nigel Pearson, though. The players responded with pride and they dug their way out of the basement and ended up finishing 14th.
Those players who are still at Leicester face finishing the season with a different manager. It's a no-win situation for their reputations now. If they get what people call "the new manager bounce" we are entitled to wonder why they wouldn't up their performance out of loyalty to Ranieri.
Lest we forget, their back four, according to one of their own, was embarrassing two weeks ago. Their board have just joined them in the stockades.
We don't know who will step into the space Ranieri leaves behind but not only will he always be haunted by the graceful Italian, he will be taking over a club that has lost its soul.
