Leicester City's surprise Premier League title win has earned the team and its heroes a great deal of praise and accolades recently, but coach Claudio Ranieri has been given the highest honour of them all so far, as he is about to be Knighted in Italy.
The 64-year-old guided the Foxes to their first ever English crown in an unexpected achievement this season and the country's prime minister Matteo Renzi had called for him to be given a national honour.
And Ranieri will be rewarded with the third highest ranking of Italian Knights by president Sergio Mattarella for "merits acquired by the nation" in sports.
The honour Ranieri will receive is one level higher than that given to the players who won the World Cup with Italy in 1982 and 2006.
The coach has some esteemed company in holding the title Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, with former USA president John F. Kennedy, opera singers Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, Argentine writer Jose Luis Borges, ex-New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and film director and writer Federico Fellini all sharing the honour.
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