Perhaps the most famous single example of this came in a Champions League tie against Inter en-route to completing the 1998/99 treble when he denied Ivan Zamorano a certain goal. It was a technique he lifted from handball, popular in Denmark, and is now repeated by goalkeepers the world over. The United legend was noted for his trademark ‘starfish’ save, spreading both arms and legs to make his body as big as possible and limit the ways in which a striker could beat him. His ability to stay upright and delay until forcing the opponent to make the first move was incredible and Ferguson once referred to ‘this big blond Viking flying out at you’ while discussing the player’s phenomenal ‘aura’. Schmeichel was noted for his presence, filling the goal and intimidating any forward that would get through one-on-one with him. He excelled at just about everything, even goalscoring – he netted 10 times during the course of his career, and brought a unique style to the role. Schmeichel was an era-defining talent, who helped re-invent modern goalkeeping and so much more than just a shot-stopper. Schmeichel was a Euro '92 champion with Denmark / Inpho Photography/Getty Images The club duly obliged.īy the time he moved to Manchester, Schmeichel was nearly 28, a different prospect to, say, David de Gea, who arrived at just 20 and took time to reach world class status. Hodgkinson reported back that Schmeichel was the best in Europe and that United had to have him. When Ferguson had learned of a stopper making waves in Denmark, he sent goalkeeping coach Alan Hodgkinson to check this player out. It helped then cement his place as the best goalkeeper in the world. That summer, Schmeichel was then part of the Denmark team that shocked the whole continent at Euro ’92 when an unfancied side, who were only invited to the tournament when Yugoslavia pulled out, went on to lift the trophy in one of football’s greatest ever fairytale triumphs. Behind a blossoming partnership between Steve Bruce and PFA Players’ Player of the Year Gary Pallister, he personally was beaten just 32 times in his 40 league appearances. In his debut season at Old Trafford in 1991/92, Schmeichel was a major reason why United conceded fewer goals than any other First Division side, including champions Leeds. I figured that we can all use some positive reinforcement at the moment.Schmeichel was hardly known outside Denmark before joining Man Utd in 1991 / Ben Radford/Getty Images What's your favourite goalkeeping performance of all-time?Īnyway, here's the video and I'll leave the link to The Athletic's article here. I figured that we can all use some positive reinforcement at the moment. Watching Keegan's face slowly shifting from happiness (since his team was playing so well) to despair (as one man made all that irrelevant) was priceless.Īnyway, here's the video and I'll leave the link to The Athletic's article here. Instead of conceding easy goals, he turned on God mode and demoralised the opposition forwards by effortlessly saving anything that was flying his way. I have to say that the first half was brutal, triggering my Brentford PTSD - even though United had Cantona, Keane, Giggs, Irwin and Cole on the pitch Newcastle could've easily scored 4 or 5 goals. So I've decided to rewatch it and make a video on it since, surprisingly, there aren't any. The head to head fixture in March was crucial - Newcastle had the chance of finishing us off, basically ending the title race here and there. The one when we were trailing behind Keegan's (I would love it if we beat them) boys by 12 points before executing the most miraculous comeback and somehow winning the league. The pick for the #1 spot was pleasantly surprising, considering the usual bias towards attackers - it was Peter Schmeichel v Newcastle from the 1995/96 season. The Athletic recently published their Golden Games series - 50 articles on 50 best individual performances in Premier League's history. I doubt that it's completely fair as the entire team was useless, but it did made me think of the games where keepers really made the difference - like the better version of De Gea v Arsenal, for example or the last CL final. De Gea made a couple of horrible mistakes and after the game took all the blame on himself. Watching us losing to Brentford in such manner, conceding 4 goals before the half time, made me think of something.
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