By Ishaan Tharoor

Even if you know nothing about English soccer you probably are aware of what has been billed as the greatest sporting upset of all time. Leicester City FC started the English Premier League season in August at 5000-to-1 odds to win the 38-game competition by season's end in May. But after its nearest challenger faltered Monday Leicester City clinched the top spot a minnow triumphing over the massive sharks in the pond.

The cliche of David vs. Goliath doesn't do this situation justice - Leicester's stunning success is if anything a tale of David vs. Goliaths. Many pundits are still struggling to explain how this relatively small unfancied club was able to compete with and outdo some of soccer's biggest richest giants. In August most of the soccer journalists at the Guardian newspaper predicted that Leicester City would finish in the bottom three places in the league a result that would have seen the team drop to the division below the next season. Instead Leicester is champion of England - and poised to take on the biggest clubs in Europe next season.

Yet for all the hoopla and deserved kudos this isn't quite the story of a provincial nobody rising to the top. The English Premier League is a money-spinning bonanza flush with cash from huge global TV deals as well as the sponsorship of a range of foreign consortia and oligarchs.

Leicester City is no different. It's owned by Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha a Thai billionaire who has invested considerably in the club since acquiring in 2010 when the side was still in England's Championship or second division. His support allowed the club's leadership to build the unheralded yet competent squad of journeymen and young talents it currently has. The Wall Street Journal has more:

"Mr. Vichai moved quickly to change the culture surrounding the club building up its infrastructure and regularly flying in Buddhist monks from Thailand to bless its stadium and meditate during home games. He also avoided splashing out on expensive star players. Last season the club spent a total of 36.6 million pounds on staff which was the third-lowest level in the league. Manchester United in contrast spent 215 million pounds.

" 'When we bought the team we had so many plans. If you ask whether we believed the team would become the Premier League champion when we bought it the truth is at that point we didn't dare to think so because of so many factors' Mr. Vichai's son Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha told Thailand's Channel 3 television news network Tuesday. 'But today the team won and we are very happy.' "

Vichai's involvement to a certain extent is par for the course in the English Premier League. Vichai was not even the first Thai tycoon to try his hand at English club ownership - that would be Thaksin Shinawatra the controversial former prime minister of Thailand who purchased Manchester City in 2007 after being deposed in a coup the previous year. (It was later sold off to a group connected to the Abu Dhabi government in the United Arab Emirates.) Thai businessmen also control two other English clubs outside the top tier.

Particularly as Leicester City's title charge entered its final stages support for the team grew in Thailand; Thais have long been rabid followers of the English Premier League and Leicester has come to be referred to affectionately as the "Siamese Foxes."

"A lot of Thais now support Leicester because of the club's Thai connections" Wanchai Rujawongsanti sports editor of the Bangkok Post told Time magazine. But he added that the majority were just hopping on the bandwagon: "If Leicester had not been in contention for the title very few people would follow them. When Leicester was struggling to survive in the Premier League last season few people here cared about them. In fact Leicester is still the 'second team' of most Thai football fans. If Manchester United or Liverpool are challenging for the title fans will surely support them instead."

The scenes of jubilation and triumph on Bangkok's streets this week are all the more remarkable when you consider the lurid headlines that the club's Thai connections generated last summer.

On an off-season tour in Bangkok a number of Leicester City players including the son of then-head coach Nigel Pearson filmed themselves making racist lewd comments in a hotel room while in the company of three Thai prostitutes. The distasteful footage of the orgy was a huge embarrassment for the club and led to Pearson's firing. His departure at the time was widely unpopular and Pearson's replacement - Claudio Ranieri an itinerant and likable but not particularly successful Italian - was mocked by soccer cognoscenti.

Ranieri and his charges though embarked on a miraculous journey thereafter proving the critics wrong and making a nation thousands of miles away rather proud.

The Washington Post