Leicester: How Kasper Schmeichel became globally respected

Kasper Schmeichel’s journey in Leicester City shirt took him through the hardships of the Championship to his coronation as a bonafide champion.

To understand the spirit of Schmeichel, we need to understand his life’s trajectory as a whole. While visiting different phases of his life, we would get a sense of what makes his story so great.

The name ‘Schmeichel’

The name Schmeichel casts a gigantic shadow against any young goalkeeper who wants to shine in the Premiership. It’s even more daunting when you are a Schmeichel yourself. From an early age, Kasper – the son of great Peter Schmeichel – was living under the burden of expectations. The constant comparison to match the father’s footsteps became an unimaginably hard ask.

Kasper Schmeichel took the rough road of playing at the same position as his old man, and when your old man is someone like the stature of Peter Schmeichel, it was always going to be a big challenge. To begin his journey, Kasper joined Manchester City in September 2002 on a long-term contract, which covered schoolboy, scholar, and professional terms.

The blue side of Manchester was his first choice as his father was playing for City during this time. However, before representing City at a senior level, he was loaned to five different clubs to earn experience and potentially grow. After his return from those spells, he played a combined of eight games in a City shirt. He eventually lost his place to the upcoming sensation Joe Hart. Hart cemented his position as the prime choice.

Kasper left Manchester and signed for League Two side Notts County. He was the highest-paid player at the club, earning £1 million annually. Here he started to get regular minutes under his former boss, Sven-Göran Eriksson. Schmeichel’s clean-sheets-to-game-ratio at Notts County was an impressive 55.8 percent (24 out of 43 league appearances).

A string of such performances helped Notts earning the 2009–10 League Two title along with guaranteed promotion. By this time, Kasper had already started to impress the scouts in the English divisions. During the end of the season, Notts decided to release the goalkeeper. Despite having four years left on his contract due to financial reasons.

Much interest in signing Kasper brewed from the Premier League and the Bundesliga clubs, but he wanted to rise gradually and steadily. Kasper was always a matured player who was cautious not to derail the tracks of his incremental rise. He signed for Leeds United and immediately put in great performances as their first choice keeper. He won the Sky Sports Championship Player of the Month award in August.

On 27 June 2011, Leeds shocked the fans when they announced that they have agreed to accept an undisclosed bid for the Dane from Leicester City. The decision was unexpected, and neither Kasper nor the pundits could make sense of the sudden transfer. All in all, Kasper was now going to join the Foxes, a team that was going to do the unthinkable.