Football Genius: Peter Schmeichel

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Ciao Steemians!

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Peter Bolesław Schmeichel, born in Galdsaxe, Denmark on November 18, 1963. A goalkeeper that weighs more than 100 kilograms by 1.93 centimeters height, a real gate for his team door, which thanks to his lightning reflexes and despite his impressive size, saves action worthy of Superman, has managed to have the reputation of one of the best goalkeepers of all time. On Danish soil it is considered a myth, one of the best players ever taken out of football from the Danish dynamite, which is the nickname of its North European national team.

With the national team he achieve the legendary conquering of European championship in 1992 in Sweden, just the year before it was bought by the English team of Manchester United, after having played in the previous ten years in 3 Danish clubs, among such as Brondby where he won 4 national titles in 5 years and managed to get into the UEFA Cup semi-final, lost at the last minute against A.S. Roma. Arrived in England he won immediately with the United number 1 jersey, winning a League Cup, in the following years will be an absolute escalation of trophies, he will win 5 Premiere League, 3 FA Cup, 4 Charity Shield, a UEFA Super Cup and finally in the top trophy, the Champions League, the latter in the spectacular treble of 1999 that was also the last match played with the red devils team.

After having played in Manchester 292 games in 8 seasons, in which he he took -242 goals, reaching the Olympus of football, decided to move to Portugal, Sporting Lisbon, where he remained only two seasons. Before come back in England to play again for two seasons, one in Aston Villa and the last one, at the age of 40, who curiously saw him play in the ranks of United's historic rivals, becoming one of the City's number one. Master of saves and very precise pass, these were two of his strengths, qualities very difficult to find in a goalkeeper, his skill is demonstrated by the statistics, being able not to took even the average of one goal per game, at least as for his golden years with the Red Devils, he is more unique than rare for an extreme defender.

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In addition to all this he managed to score 13 goals during his splendid career, he did not shoot penalties or free kicks, simply when the situation became extreme and without hope, he felt the need to advance in the penalty area during the kicking corner and sometimes he managed to score with the addition an enviable technique considering the role that competed him. He possessed the reflections of a cat, which allowed him to realize not only the headshot, even scissor kick and Chilena. Over the years, congratulations and comparisons have been made about him, there are those who, like the sports newspaper Telegraph, have even managed to compare it to the imaginary character King Kong:

An enormous physical and vocal presence in the goalmouth, Peter Schmeichel’s imposing size, agility, determination to disarm each cross with the contempt King Kong showed for biplanes and express distribution gave United an air of invulnerability and swaggering dominance for eight seasons.

According to insiders he feared nothing and nobody besides being very confident in his abilities, forged as a young man from factory work and as a cleaner in a nursing home. The great Gary Nevill remembers him with "tenderness" and melancholy with this short story:

When I first got into the first team, Peter Schmeichel was brutal with me, he didn't fancy me as a player that much. Peter Schmeichel was the goalkeeper and that back four of Bruce, Pallister, Parker and Irwin was legendary. Paul Parker picked up an injury and I started getting in at right-back, and obviously as a young player, you're not perfect, you make a couple of mistakes and he just absolutely battered me in training, daily, about my defending, my crossing. He used to do this crossing practice after the game and he used to stand on the penalty spot and catch it and say, "That's sh**!" He regularly just did that and he was actually just being really tough and horrible with me. It did affect me but to be honest, you have to just come through it and that's part of it because imagine if you crack when you go out on to the pitch with the fans booing you away from home.

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