It is not every day that you go to a football match and end up with an Oscar in your hands. But then it is not every day that a story like Jamie Vardy's comes.
Those among us in the press box in the King Power Stadium in May 2017, one year after the sensational title profit of Leicester City, one of the famous bronze statues that belonged to the co-producer of the King's speech who was planning to take Vardy's Underdog story to Hollywood.
Although that story still has to be on the big screen – although a Netflix documentary will soon be on our scenes – Vardy chapter after chapter, scene after scene continued to write.
Premier League title, FA Cup, Community Shield, Champions League quarterfinals and two championships.
The 15th leading scorer of the Premier League with 143 goals, the most by every player since he became 30 with 109, a Golden Boot winner and the man who broke the current manager Ruud van Nistelrooy's scoring record in 11 consecutive Premier League matches.
An international in England with 26 caps, which played at a European championships and a world cup.
All this from the lean boy from Sheffield that Leicester signed for £ 1 million 13 years ago from the Non-League Fleetwood Town.
And yet all the stories have to end and Vardy revealed yesterday that it was finally time to say goodbye to Leicester. He will, in the opinion of this writer, leave as the biggest player ever of the club.
“For the fans of Leicester, stripped that this day is coming, but I knew it would eventually come,” Vardy said on social media. 'I spent 13 incredible years in this club with great success. Some downs, but the majority were highlights, but it is finally time to call it a day that I am devastated, but I think the timing is good. '
Mail Sport understands that Leicester Vardy allowed his own decision about his future and the striker thought it was the right time to say goodbye. It is believed that he is open to stay in the Premier League if the chance occurs. He will not have too few offers abroad.
“I want to keep playing and doing what I enjoy the most – scoring goals,” he added on Instagram. “I am perhaps 38, but I still have the desire and ambition to achieve so much more.”
Even in a terrible Leicester side that has just suffered his second relegation in three seasons, he has still managed seven league goals.
What is the secret? This is the same Vardy who drinks three Red Bulls before he corresponds to his cheese-and-ham elettes, mixed skittles and vodka, drunk harbor from a luczade bottle and is stuck under his upper lip.
In addition to those peculiarities, it is also a Vardy who had built a cryotherapy room in his house to keep himself fit in later years.
More than whatever, it still makes him. It was Vardy, now club captain, who apologized for the 'S *** Show' of the relegation of Leicester after it was confirmed during the weekend.
This is part of what makes Vardy's departure such an emotional moment for Leicester supporters. He is the last of the title winners to leave, the last link on the field between the glorious past and the grim present.
It is Vardy who embodied for so long what it meant to play for Leicester, a team that once took a lot of pleasure to punch over their weight. This was a player who before he became a professional worked in a factory that made medical splints, released before Wednesday of 16 years, and whose journey came to the Premier League via Stocksbridge Park Steels, Halifax and Fleetwood before he became the first player with a million pound in history.
They no longer make football players like Vardy. This was the Vardy who once appeared in a full Spiderman costume, the Vardy who once held a stack of eggs around the Fleetwood-Chef car, and the Vardy who teaches foreign abuse to insult rival center-backs.
This is the Vardy who likes to celebrate for road fans, his eagle wings against Crystal Palace, crying for the supporters of the Wolves or simply points to the Premier League -Badge to remember Tottenham fans how many more titles he had than she did.
Opposition crowds have never learned to stop singing about his wife Rebekah's role in the infamous Wagatha Christie process with Colen Rooney, because he, like timepiece, scores and returns it immediately.
They certainly don't make football players that loyal. Vardy had the opportunity to become a member of Arsenal after the title profit and signed a new contract when they were relegated two seasons ago.
They have not always been incredible highlights. Vardy struggled in his first season and it needed former Leicester manager Nigel Pearson and the late Craig Shakespeare to stop him out to play football to become an Ibiza party representative.
A year before the title of Leicester, he became a fine of the club a fine of a racial bastard against a Japanese man in a casino.
During his Non-League days he wore an electronic tag after he was convicted of abuse after he had defended his friend who was abused for wearing a hearing aid and often had to be immersed early and jump over a fence in a escape car to prevent him from broke his evening clock.
Vardy leaves Leicester as one of the biggest strikers of the Premier League era. He was 27 when he made his debut, but since then only Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah have scored more goals in the competition – Vardy spent one of those seasons in the championship.
This is the player who once claimed Michael Owen that it was 'not a natural finisher', but started scoring incredible goals, such as his thunderous 30-Yard strike against Liverpool, his beautiful volley over the shoulder of Riyad Mahrez's Pass against West Brom, his little Flick Finish for England against Germany.
Erling Haaland revealed in 2022 that he looked at YouTube videos of Vardy's movement because he was 'the best in the world' when running behind the defense.
Vardy has five more games left to say goodbye. The man who once inspired filmmakers to bring their small bronze images to the stadium that made his own will for 13 years, one day, has his own giant outside his doors.