A sign for the boys: Kasper Schmeichel managed to shake off his father's shadow

The 35-year-old goalkeeper has had to deal with some skepticism about his ability due to being Peter's son.

Nevertheless, he paved his way to the first goalkeeper position in the Danish national team and recorded wonderful achievements in England, and he really does not intend to stop.

Tonight he will stand between the posts in Bloomfield against Maccabi Tel Aviv

Inbal Manor

08/17/2022

Wednesday, August 17, 2022, 2:00 p.m

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The goals of the week, 17.8 (Sport1)

Kasper Schmeichel's departure to Nice has been in the air for days, but when he came to say goodbye to his teammates in the dressing room, the Leicester players found it hard to believe it was real.

"It was a surreal moment, for him too. When you think of Leicester, you think of Kasper Schmeichel," said stopper Jonny Evans, who inherited the captain's armband from the Danish goalkeeper.

"His departure was a huge market for us."

Schmeichel played in Leicester for 11 years.

479 performances.

144 games with a clean sheet.

He went up with the team to the league.

He is the last remnant of the historic championship, won with the next generation the FA Cup and the community shield.

Then, almost out of nowhere, at the age of 35, he broke up in favor of a new adventure in Nice, France.

Not a routine destination.

This move surprised many.

Schmeichel once again did things in his original way.

What is behind the decision?

He spent 11 wonderful years in Leicester.

Schmeichel (Photo: Reuters)

The local media in Leicester know how to tell that the move has been brewing for quite some time.

The first hint came in May.

In the penultimate round of the season, Brendan Rodgers chose to bench Schmeichel in favor of assistant goalkeeper Danny Ward.

On paper, nothing out of the ordinary.

Ward (who failed miserably against Arsenal this week) is a goalkeeper that Leicester bought from Liverpool in 2018 for £12.5 million. The problem for him was that until that match against Watford he had not seen a minute of Premier League action. Schmeichel played 149 consecutive league games.

Rodgers explained that Ward You have to play because "it's healthy for the squad", but no one thought there was any interest here. Even when there were rumors that Leicester was looking for a goalkeeper in the market, even when the name of Robert Sanchez from Brighton came up, the media believed that the club was preparing for the future. Even when Schmeichel was the last to show up For pre-season training, they explained there that Rogers had given him time to rest ahead of the tough season and the World Cup in the winter.

The coach and the goalkeeper talked publicly about continuing together next season, but under the surface things worked differently.

In Leicester, there was some disappointment with the fact that the team suffered from set pieces and highs to widen the highest percentage of goals in the Premier League.

It is also said that Rogers, who realized that he would not be able to shake up the squad with many acquisitions, thought that the departure of a central figure like Schmeichel a year before the end of his contract would create a significant effect of rejuvenation.

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Wanted a new challenge.

Schmeichel with Salah (Photo: Reuters)

At the same time, it is worth emphasizing, the parties parted as friends.

"He's a real icon of the club," Rodgers said.

"He's a great guy off the field and I don't say that lightly. His passion, his determination. It's hard to live with the name Schmeichel, but he made a name for himself because of how good he was. I'll miss him and the players will miss him. He's off on a new adventure on a three-year contract years, and I'm sure he'll enjoy the experience."

Schmeichel's version of departure is similar.

He wanted to do something new.

To write a new chapter, perhaps the last, in his amazing career story.

"When you leave a place you called home after 11 years, there is a period of transition. A new environment, a new league, a new country, there is no doubt that I went through some strange days," he said after landing in France.

"My relationship with Leicester is well known. Everything has an end and I think the time has come. I wanted to move forward and grow as a person, as a player and get out of the comfort zone, try something completely different and new."

Now let's go back.

Schmeichel grew into a constant struggle to break free from the shadow of his father, the legendary former goalkeeper Peter.

He arrived at the age of 15 at Manchester City's academy, moved between the loans at Darlington, Berry, Falkirk, Cardiff and Coventry, played at Notts County and landed for one unsuccessful season at Leeds, where the fans reminded him repeatedly of his father.

"They sang me a song in which they curse my father, but say they welcome me. It doesn't exactly convey a welcome," he later said.

Kasper was looking for a stable place that would accept him as he is and he found what he was looking for in Leicester.

There, he managed to free himself from the shadow.

reach unimaginable achievements.

Casper grew into a constant struggle to break free from his father's shadow.

Peter Schmeichel (Photo: GettyImages)

In the national team it was a tougher story.

Schmeichel was neither the first nor the second in line to grab the vest in Denmark after the retirement of Thomas Sorensen.

He has never played in Denmark and some argue that this also made his route more difficult.

He was the third goalkeeper in Euro 2012 and only at the age of 26, he made his senior team debut on the way to 84 international appearances today. "Kasper's path to his first senior team appearance was a struggle during which he was constantly asked about his father," claimed journalist Johnny Kokburg "It's amazing what he achieved on the way to freeing himself from this shadow.

There are so many stories and examples of sons who failed to escape, such as the sons of Michael and Brian Laudrup.

Leicester made Kasper one of the best goalkeepers in Europe in recent years."

And there was another event that made Kasper a national hero in his own right.

The collapse of Christian Eriksen, the terrible moments of anxiety in Parken at the Euros, showed the whole world what Schmeichel is made of.

Three years earlier, rescuers had to stop the janitor while trying to rescue the victims of a helicopter crash that killed my husband Lester Vichai and four others.

Christian Fox, ex-Leicester, was with Schmeichel at King Power on the day of the disaster in 2018.

When Eriksen was fighting for his life, Fox in his commentary premiere on the ESPN network looked for his friend from Leicester: "I said on the broadcast that the only person I look up to is Kasper. From his reaction - and in light of everything he's been through - I knew something really bad had happened."

He wasn't the only one looking for Casper.

During the attempts to revive Eriksen, Schmeichel managed the situation together with Simon Kier.

The Danes watched him support Eriksen's wife and hug players who struggled to cope.

"It showed who the man was. Even before that, his modesty was highly valued in Denmark. His natural leadership manifested itself at a critical moment. His popularity skyrocketed at that moment," said journalist Jonas Alexander Nor-Nielsen.

His conduct during that Eriksen meltdown made him a national hero in Denmark.

Schmeichel with his teammates (Photo: Reuters)

The Danish writer Carsten Fogh-Hansen, who closely accompanied the team in winning Euro 1992, believes that that evening last June was the final stamp for the turnaround.

"Now the younger generation knows Peter as Kasper's father. Like in England, until recently the fans in Denmark were closer to the Mar teams than to the national team. Thanks to the hosting of the Euro games and of course Eriksen's case, the situation has changed and there has been a rapprochement. Kasper was loved, but now he is loved more because everyone See what kind of person he is."

After Michael Jr. achieved in his own way what his father achieved in the Premier League and earned, by his own merits, the appreciation in Denmark, he is ready for his own unique chapter.

The Nice project convinced Schmeichel.

An ambitious club with a lot of money and great facilities.

The fans were also excited to be there on such a scale and came in droves to watch the official show.

With all due respect to the games against Maccabi Tel Aviv on the ticket for the group stage in the Conference League, the ambitious Nice with the big money and the shiny purchase is aiming for the Champions League.

"I wouldn't have come if I thought we had no chance of competing in the Champions League. With the ambitions and support this club has, interesting things can be done. The staff is high-quality and young and I'm here to add experience and guidance. We're going to have a very good season," the Dane promised.

The debut was on Sunday in a 1:1 with Strasbourg.

"I was pretty good," he said after the game.

"But not good enough. When you concede a goal, in training or in a game, you're always angry. It happened. We move on."

Next stop: Bloomfield.

By the way, a reminder: with Leicester, Schmeichel reached the semi-finals of the Conference League last year.

On the way there he absorbed a golden shower.

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