Kasper Schmeichel says a happy goodbye to Leicester City as he moves to Nice – The Warm-Up

THURSDAY’S BIG STORIES

Great Dane

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Kasper Schmeichel is on his way to Nice. If you’d asked Schmeichel, 11 long years ago, if he thought joining Leicester gave him a shot at a league title, he’d probably have said “Absolutely!” He was being brought in by Sven-Goran Eriksson, after all, a manager with titles across three countries. And Leicester were in the Championship, a notoriously open league.

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If you’d asked him about the Premier League title, however – yes, yes, we’re very annoying – then he might have done one of those big booming goalkeeper laughs. Or he might have looked all thoughtful and said something sportspersonlike. “I’m an ambitious player and I want to win trophies, and I believe in my own abilities.” But in truth, nobody would have asked him. It would have been a silly question and a waste of everybody’s time. It was impossible then, impossible when they did it, and it remains impossible now even after it actually happened.

Championship winner, Premier League winner, FA Cup winner: it’s a pretty remarkable return for a goalkeeper playing outside the biggest teams at this point in football history. It’s also more than Gordon Banks (League Cup winner, 1964) or Peter Shilton (Division Two, 1971) managed in their time at the club, the losers.

And Schmeichel leaves with another precious and rare victory: he does so on his own terms. The risk with undroppable goalkeepers is that they hang around too long, and everybody has to make polite conversation while they clatter around destroying their own reputation. As it is, nobody at Leicester has any reason to think anything but fondly about their departing captain. Well, unless they remember this against Doncaster. How do you even catch a ball backwards?

That said, while the timing’s good for Schmeichel, it’s definitely interesting for Leicester. We were quite surprised to realise that Schmeichel is the first first-teamer to leave the King Power this season (unless you count Ademola Lookman, who returned to RB Leipzig when his loan ended). But of course, it’s been a summer of “You want Wesley Fofana? That’ll be a billion pounds.” “You want James Maddison? That’ll be a squillion.” “You want Youri Tielemans? You’ll probably need to make a bid for him.” Lots of noise, very little movement.

To balance all that lack of outward action, nobody’s come in either. Now, if Leicester begin this season with Danny Ward taking over in goal, but otherwise much the same team as last season, then that’s basically fine, right? Jamie Vardy and Jonny Evans fading away, Patson Daka and Fofana emerging to take their places, otherwise everybody as you were.

Where things might get messy is if the noise becomes action. Chelsea have a billion pounds to spend on Wesley Fofana, approximately. Newcastle literally have a squillion for Maddison. Between now and the beginning of September, Leicester’s spine could be gone. Or at the very least, the key vertebrae could have had their head turned. (Vertebrae don’t have heads. That analogy got out of hand. Vertebrae don’t have hands either. Stop it now.)

The battle for mid-table places is going to be ferocious this year, with Aston Villa, Newcastle, West Ham and Manchester United all tooling up. Brendan Rodgers began the summer talking about a rebuild . The nightmare scenario is that he gets his wish, but Leicester have to cram it all into the final few weeks of the window, with the season already going.

You Put Your Left-Back In, Your Left-Back Out

When Ben Chilwell limped off against Juventus last November, with what would turn out to be a season-ending ACL injury, Chelsea were on top of the league. We’re not saying that’s the only reason they eventually finished 19 points behind Manchester City, but it can’t have helped, and Thomas Tuchel will have wanted two things over the summer. One, Chilwell back fit. That seems to be going fine. And two, a top-class alternative.

Perhaps this explains why Chelsea are spending just over £50 million on Brighton’s Marc Cucurella. Or perhaps Thomas Tuchel has realised that Chelsea, man for man and lock for lock, have the most boring hair in the Premier League. Either way, the prospect of Marcos Alonso taking his boring haircut to Barcelona has just got a lot more— hang on, what’s this?

But, but, but, but, but Fabrizio Romano said “here we go”! This is the most trustworthy voice in football! The man who knows what we’re having for lunch before we do! (“Cheese and pickle sandwich, half a bag of Monster Munch, fun size Mars Bar, here we go.”)

Of course, the most likely explanation is that the deal is nearly but not quite ready, and that some source somewhere has just got a little ahead of themselves. Not least because this represents fabulous business for Brighton, who bought Cucurella for a reported £15.4 million just one year ago. Perhaps Brighton just want to wait until the deal to bring Levi Colwill the other way has also reached “here we go” status. Every action needs an equal and opposite reaction.

The chaos option is that Manchester City have come in late with another, bigger bid, and Brighton are desperately riffling through everything they’ve signed in search of a loophole. Or Barcelona have turned up and offered a shiny button, payable by 2050, along with another button to be paid if Cucurella colonises Mars. Nevertheless, a reminder that even the most reliable of us are but puny mortals tossed this way and that by the whims of the transfer market.

IN THE CHANNELS

It’s easy to over think a transfer announcement, so there’s a pleasing simplicity about Nice’s effort with Schmeichel. “He’s from Scandinavia? That’s where Vikings were from! And recent popular film The Northman! Right, longship it.” A pity Aaron Ramsey didn’t get an Eisteddfod riff, but such is life.

Incidentally, Kasper and Aaron, if you’re reading, it’s only fair to warn you. You are officially under suspicion of making late career moves based at least in part on “Hey, this would be a pretty place to live”. The same goes for you, Cesc Fàbregas, newly of Como. We know what you’re up to. And, yes, we seethe with envy.

RETRO CORNER

On this day in 1999, Brazil and Mexico walked out at the Azteca to contest the Confederations’ Cup final. It was quite a tournament. Germany turned up with the reserves and lost to Brazil and then the USA. Some skinny short-haired scrap of a lad called Ronaldinho announced himself to the world. Kasey Keller had the game of his career in the semi-finals but lost anyway. Brazil put eight past Saudi Arabia despite playing underwater. And then, in the final, Mexico scored four while Brazil could only manage three, to the delight of 110,000 home fans.

HAT TIP

Are you sitting comfortably? No pans on the hob or anything? Good. Over we go to the Athletic – Adam Crafton, Pol Ballus and more – for their exhaustive and at times bizarre account of how – and why – Barcelona are spending their way through their financial black hole. Short version: A lot of borrowing, a lot of promises, and the still-looming threat of being unable to register some or all of their new signings in time for the beginning of the season.

But you’ll want to take the time to read the long version, because it’s dripping with gossip. For our money, the funniest aside is the suggestion that Barcelona president Juan Laporta, irritated with La Liga, has “started to send documents … in the Catalan language rather than Spanish.” The most intriguing is the suggestion that Barca, along with fellow Super League holdouts Real Madrid and Juventus, are being given the cold shoulder by the rest of Europe’s elite. “For other clubs across Europe, fixtures against the three Super League hold-outs appear to be frowned upon. It is not a coincidence that the three ‘rebel’ clubs did not play any of Europe’s other top clubs during their respective visits to the US.”

You may recall that Roma were announced as opponents for Barcelona’s preseason Gamper trophy, only to cancel a couple of weeks later. Well, “The suspicion at Camp Nou, and among the Super League organisers, is that UEFA, as well as the European Club Association chairman (and PSG president) Nasser Al-Khelaifi leaned on Roma’s American president Dan Friedkin to get him to take their side in the ongoing dispute. Officially, however, Roma’s statement attributed the decision ‘as a consequence of the need to modify the plan for summer friendly matches’.”

COMING UP

A smattering of Europa League and Europa Conference qualifiers tonight. Your headline fixture is probably Dundee United vs. AZ Alkmaar, which has a faint tickle of UEFA Cup energy.

As a gesture of solidarity with Frenkie de Jong, Andi Thomas will not be signing for Barcelona. But he will be here with tomorrow’s Warm-Up.

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