Who was the only Leicester City player to win the FIFA World Cup?

The only Leicester City player to win the FIFA World Cup was the late, great Gordon Banks, who died on February 12, 2019 at the age of 81. Banks made his first team debut for the Foxes against Blackpool in Football League Division One at Filbert Street on September 9, 1959, following an injury to first-choice goalkeeper Johnny Anderson; when Anderson left to join Peterbrough United at the end of the 1959/60 season, he was promoted to principal custodian at the club. That he remained until March, 1967, making 295 league appearances for Leicester City, before being ousted, mercilessly, by 18-year-old Peter Shilton and transferred to Stoke City.

Of course, the previous summer, as the number one goalkeeper for the England team, under the subsequently-knighted Alf Ramsey, Banks played ever minute of every game in the 1966 FIFA World Cup. He kept clean sheets in all three Group 1 games, against Uruguay, Mexico and France and another against Argentina in the quarter-finals and conceded just one goal – a late penalty scored by legendary Portuguese striker Eusebio in the semi-final – on the way to the iconic final at Wembley Stadium.

On that fateful day, Saturday, July 30, 1996, Banks, and England, conceded their first goals from open play in the tournament; the first was scored by forward Helmut Haller, following a misplaced header by England left-back Ray Wilson, and the second by central defender Wolfgang Weber, after 89 minutes, to send the match into extra time. The rest, as they say, is history, but it is worth noting that, alongside team-mates George Cohen, Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst, Banks was named in FIFA World Cup All-Star Team for the tournament.

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