Leicester City | Kasper Schmeichel | Goalkeeper

He has also represented the Club in every European competition – the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League. The Denmark international is now third on Leicester City’s all-time appearances charts, behind only Graham Cross and Adam Black.

Early on in the Copenhagen-born goalkeeper’s career, he enjoyed loan spells, from Manchester City, to Darlington, Bury, Falkirk, Cardiff City and Coventry City, including a one-year permanent spell at Notts County, winning the League 2 title. Schmeichel then signed from Leeds United for Sven-Göran Eriksson’s Foxes in 2011 as the former England manager made a bid for promotion to the Premier League.

While Eriksson’s efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, his replacement, Nigel Pearson, ended Leicester’s 10-year exile from the top-flight – with Schmeichel appearing in all 46 of City’s matches as the Foxes won the Championship title with 102 points in 2013/14.

The ‘keeper was later named in the English Football League’s Team of the Decade for the passage of time between 2005 and 2015. With excellent shot-stopping and distribution abilities, Schmeichel settled into the Premier League with ease, despite suffering an injury which limited him to 24 top-flight outings in 2014/15.

His return, though, coincided with an incredible run of seven wins in nine matches to secure City’s top-flight survival – form that continued the following year under Claudio Ranieri as Schmeichel kept 15 clean sheets to help Leicester seal an historic first Premier League title.

Fans came to expect the extraordinary from their confident Danish ‘keeper and he duly delivered with four clean sheets and several crucial interventions during the Club’s maiden UEFA Champions League run.

Schmeichel’s reputation for performing in the biggest moments was underlined in Europe, making crucial penalty saves in each leg of a dramatic last-16 tie with FC Sevilla to earn Leicester a place in the quarter-finals, where they fell narrowly to Atlético Madrid.

Schmeichel’s continued excellence for the Foxes during the 2017/18 campaign earned him the No.1 shirt for Denmark at the 2018 FIFA World Cup as his home country reached the last-16 stage. In Russia, after playing a key role in qualification for Åge Hareide’s men, Schmeichel broke a record previously held by his father Peter by going 533 minutes without conceding a goal in Denmark’s colours.

Another highlight at the World Cup, despite the end result, was Schmeichel making three penalty saves – one in extra-time and another two in the shootout – as Denmark were edged by eventual finalists Croatia.

Following the tournament, meanwhile, the Dane was nominated, alongside Thibaut Courtois and Hugo Lloris, among the top three shot-stoppers in the world in the FIFA Best award’s goalkeeper category.

Throughout his City career, Kasper has won the Danish Footballer of the Year award on three occasions, a record only bettered by Brian Laudrup and Christian Eriksen.

Schmeichel, who has made more international appearances while on the Club’s books than any other player, is a two-time Leicester City Player of the Season winner, while also scooping the Players’ Player of the Season prize twice.

In August 2018, on the other hand, the Football Club confirmed that Schmeichel had signed a new contract, keeping him at King Power Stadium until June 2023.

A senior figure in the Leicester squad, Schmeichel played every minute of the 2018/19 Premier League season, often stepping up to captain the side in the absence of Wes Morgan, a role he continued to perform with admirable authority during the 2019/20 season.

The following campaign was a landmark year for the Dane as the Foxes secured a second successive fifth-placed finish in the Premier League and – with the help of some heroics from Schmeichel himself in the final – they lifted the FA Cup trophy for the first time in the Club’s history. 

That summer, a year later than planned due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Schmeichel represented Denmark at UEFA EURO 2020, helping his national team reach the semi-finals. They were ultimately beaten, albeit narrowly, by England in the last-four at Wembley Stadium. 

Another clean sheet followed in August of the same year, too, as Schmeichel, the Club’s new captain, lifted the FA Community Shield following a 1-0 success over Manchester City at Wembley Stadium. Later that year, he was nominated for the prestigious Yashin Trophy as part of the 2021 France Football awards.