From Cubs to Foxes: Why 2016 is the year of the underdog.

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Photos: Fans, players celebrate historic title

Chicago Cubs fans celebrate in the streets after their hard-luck team beat the Cleveland Indians 8-7 
Wednesday night in the World Series to win their first championship in 108 years.

 The last time Chicago Cubs won the World Series, just 1.7 billion people walked the earth -- the same number of Facebook users around the world today.

The year was 1908, production on the Titanic had begun, and the Cubs were defending champions.

Having comfortably beaten the Detroit Tigers to claim the title, nobody would have dreamed it would

 take this long for them to win another.

 But baseball's history makers are far from the only fairytale story of 2016...

Sport's greatest triumph

Captain Wes Morgan and manager Claudio Ranieri of Leicester City lift the Premier League trophy.

When Leicester City began the 2008-09 season in the third tier of English football, Jamie Vardy was 

working in a carbon-fiber factory while playing semi-professional football for Stockbridge Park Steels.

Just two years ago, Claudio Ranieri was without a job having been fired by the Greek national team after defeat to the 187th-ranked Faroe Islands.

And at the start of last August, weeks after the team had miraculously escaped Premier League relegation, you would have got better odds on Kim Kardashian becoming president of the US by 2020 than the unthinkable occurring.

But of course it did.

 Underdog Leicester crowned Premier League champion as Chelsea holds Tottenham.

 And the fairytale endures; just this month, Ranieri has been shortlisted for FIFA's Coach of the Year 

award, while Vardy -- the EPL's second top scorer in 2015-16 -- has been nominated for the Ballon D'Or.

Hibernian

Edward VII was succeeding Queen Victoria on the English throne the last time Hibernian won 

the Scottish Cup back in 1902. 

Over a century on, Scottish football's most prestigious knockout competition once again involved

 the team affectionately known as "The Cabbage" -- only this time Hibs, and their opponent Rangers,

 were both languishing in the second division.

In the years since, Rangers had been to the bottom of the Scottish football pyramid and back again 

-- having won promotion to the Premiership last season-- and sought to crown their resurgence with 

victory.

Over 50,000 fans descended on Glasgow's Hampden Park that afternoon, with most expecting 33-time winners Rangers to add another trophy to the cabinet.

Only Hibernian had other ideas, and an injury-time winner from club captain David Gray was enough

 for the men in green to prevail 3-2.

 http://cnn.it/1SJfS2O  #LCFC #CHETOT

The year of the bulldog.

Down under, the Western Bulldogs beat Sydney 89-67 to win their first Australian Football League Premiership since 1954.

The DOGS ARE PREMIERS!!!

62 YEARS IN THE MAKING!

WE BLOODY DID IT. #bemorebulldog 

Eder's redemption

Albania, Iceland, Slovakia, Northern Ireland and Wales all qualified for the European Championships

 for the first time.

Iceland -- population 330,000 -- knocked out England, delighted crowds with Nordic grit and thunderclaps, and journeyed home heroes. The Welsh, buoyed by Gareth Bale, reached the semifinals at their first major tournament since the 1958 World Cup.

But Portuguese striker Eder was an underdog on one of soccer's biggest stages.

 UEFA EURO

 The final whistle goes. Portugal are #EURO2016 champions!

The 28-year-old had never scored a competitive goal for Portugal, and hadn't even registered a shot 

 for his club side that season, but rifled a 30-yard strike into the bottom corner of Hugo Lloris' goal 

in the dying embers of the Euro 2016 final to win his country's first major international trophy.

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As coach Fernando Santos put it, the "ugly duckling" had become a "beautiful swan."