The worst Leicester City XI of the 21st century includes England’s Euro 2004 nemesis

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The 21st century has been relatively kind to Leicester City over the years but there have also been some low points.

Leicester’s biggest fall was when they dropped into League One for the first time in the club’s history in 2008.

Since then it’s been a real rollercoaster ride and that time has coincided with the Foxes’ most successful period.

However, for every Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez is another player who is remembered for all of the wrong reasons.

Here, EFL Analysis ranks the worst XI in Leicester’s history.

• READ MORE: Leicester City managers ranked by win percentage as Foxes search for Ruud van Nistlerooy’s successor

Leicester’s worst XI of the 21st century

Goalkeeper – Ricardo

Danny Ward was very close to being the name on this list but for the name and profile alone, it has to be Ricardo.

Joining Leicester at the end of his career, the goalkeeper was best-known for being the man that denied England at Euro 2004, saving a penalty without wearing goalkeeping gloves. Unfortunately, he was well past it by the time he arrived at the King Power Stadium.

Mistake after mistake, he left at the end of the 2010/11 season and has been forgotten since then.

Defender – Hossein Kaebi

One of those Leicester signings that will forever go down in history. Hossein Kaebi was first known for keeping Cristiano Ronaldo quiet while representing Iran against Portugal in the 2006 World Cup.

That caught the eye of then-Leicester owner Milan Mandaric, who then told manager Martin Allen that he would be signing him.

Allen recalled the story on the Big Strong Leicester Boys of how he “couldn’t believe how small he was” and that he was forced to play him before leaving after four games.

In the end, Kaebi made three appearances before having his contract terminated after seven months.

Defender – Matt Mills

Shortly after King Power had completed their takeover of Leicester, money was spent like it was going out of fashion.

Matt Mills was a record signing for the Foxes in 2011, joining for £5.5m and instantly made captain. He was below-par and nothing like the player that had impressed while at Reading and although there are probably worse players, he is pound-for-pound one of the worst players to represent the Foxes.

Defender – Molla Wague

The definition of one game and go. Or, maybe half a game. Molla Wague joined on loan in the 2016/17 season, one year after the infamous Premier League title win.

He made his debut against Millwall in the FA Cup but was subbed off with an injury in the first half and was never seen again.

Defender – Ryan McGivern

A fair few candidates for this slot. Ryan Bertrand was one of those but recency bias can’t come into effect all the time so Ryan McGivern is given the honour of the left-back slot.

McGivern joined the Foxes as a youngster on loan from Manchester City but was very disappointing in his 12 appearances.

In a surprise to most, the former Northern Ireland international is still playing and is currently turning out for Newry City in the Northern Ireland Premiership.

Midfielder – Rachid Ghezzal

Signed to be the replacement for Riyad Mahrez, Rachid Ghezzal was one, even two steps below in terms of quality.

Ghezzal scored the odd wonder goal but soon found himself on the fringes of the first team and eventually sent out on loan multiple times before making a permanent move to Turkey.

In fairness to Ghezzal, replacing Mahrez was going to be a difficult task for anyone.

Midfielder – Leon Crncic

A name that makes Leicester fans go: ‘Leon Crncic? As in, the Leon Crncic?’

The Slovenian midfielder was signed from Atalanta as a youngster in 2010 following a successful trial but Sven Goran-Eriksson didn’t rate him and he made a grand total of zero appearances.

His contract was cut short early in August 2011 and returned to Slovenia, where he has spent the majority of his career.

Midfielder – Junior Lewis

Some Leicester fans would go as far as to say that Junior Lewis was the worst player they’ve ever seen play for the club.

Signed by Peter Taylor in 2001, he would make his stay permanent and remain with the Foxes until 2004.

FourFourTwo named him in their list of the 50 worst players in Premier League history and that tells you all you need to know about him.

Midfielder – Joe Hamill

Signed by Craig Levein, Joe Hamill was a disaster from start to finish.

The winger didn’t exactly cover himself in glory with Hearts and unsurprisingly registered zero goals or assists within 15 appearances.

Forward – Ade Akinbiyi

Ade Akinbiyi has almost reached a cult hero level status – simply because of how bad he was for Leicester.

Tasked with replacing Emile Heskey after he joined Liverpool, Akinbiyi joined for a club-record fee of over £5m and was a disaster.

In an interview with FourFourTwo in 2019, Akinbiyi opened up on what it’s like to be known as a flop, saying: “I scored nine league goals in the 2000/01 season.

“These days, if you score nine goals in the Premier League that’s seen as not too bad. But back in the day, people expected a lot of goals from players like me. It didn’t happen. It was more or less a waste of money, if you want to call it that.”

Forward – Roman Bednar

There were so many players that could’ve slotted into this role, but Roman Bednar rounds off the worst Leicester City XI of the 21st century.

Bednar has had spells at other Championship clubs like West Brom and Blackpool.

His time at Leicester was brief, making five appearances but failing to score in any of them and delivering some very forgettable performances.

Honourable mentions for the worst Leicester City XI

There are some players that missed the cut for the worst Leicester City XI but were very close to being included:

• Danny Ward
• Moreno
• Zsolt Laczko
• Ryan Bertrand
• Gokhan Inler
• Gabor Bori
• Marko Futacs
• Elvis Hammond