Back in December, as long-shots Leicester City led the English Premier League, most of world football figured they would fade badly.

Those swollen ranks included Gary Lineker, the host of the BBC review show Match of the Day.

Lineker was so sure Leicester would fall back into the pack that he vowed to host MotD in his underwear if they won the Premier League championship.

Leicester City won the Premier League by 10 points, ignoring Lineker as well as oddsmakers who had installed them as 5,000-to-1 shots, before the start of the season, to become champions.

Leaving Lineker — who no doubt figured he was more likely to be elected prime minister than be on the wrong side of his Leicester vow — to own up to his promise.

And tonight, in the first “Match of the Day” broadcast of the 2016-17 season, the former England and Leicester forward gritted his teeth and did his “cold open” in Leicester City-branded underwear — as can be seen in this video.

Just to be pedantic, the British do not use the word “pants” in the same way as do Americans. I learned this early on at The National in Abu Dhabi, where we edited in British English.

Yanks would say they are wearing underwear beneath their pants.

Brits would find that amusing because in their world “pants” are what you wear next to your skin — and what you wear atop pants are trousers.

Yanks, of course, use “pants” instead of trousers — which, in turn, sounds silly to Americans.

(End pedantry.)

That is why you will see, in the linked Guardian story, that they carefully refer to “underpants” and to “underwear”. To make clear to non-British readers that they are talking about Lineker wearing just one layer of shorts.

I believe we must give credit to Lineker for 1) spending a lot of energy on his tan and 2) apparently doing a lot of sit-ups in the three months between Leicester clinching and the current season opening to avoid looking like a paunchy, 55-year-old man. And he is — 55; not paunchy.

He stuck with the boxers look for the first 30 minutes of the show before switching back to something more formal — and more modest.

The lesson here … is not to make the sort of very public promise to do something in the event of this, that or the other — the sort of promise Lineker made.

Instead, vow to something clearly impossible — like eat your hat. Unless you have a particularly tasty hat.