The hope is that Nice can improve on last year’s fifth-place finish and qualify for the European competition.
On and off the pitch, the Aiglons have a big character with Schmeichel. The lowdown is on Ligue1.com.
🆕 Our 5️⃣ new Aiglons’ squad numbers 🦅 1️⃣ Kasper Schmeichel 🇩🇰
4️⃣2️⃣ Mattia Viti 🇮🇹
2️⃣1️⃣ Beka Beka 🇫🇷
1️⃣6️⃣ Ramsey 🏴1️⃣8️⃣ Ilie 🇷🇴 pic.twitter.com/yEMvFiHL7D
— OGC Nice 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@ogcnice_eng) August 5, 2022
Like his father and son.
Peter Schmeichel was the captain of Manchester United when they won the 1999 European Cup.
The younger Schmeichel grew up in England at the height of his father’s playing career and speaks English with a Northern accent. Alex Bruce is the son of Steve, who was a teammate of Peter’s at Man Utd.
At the age of 15, he was signed to Manchester City’s youth academy, and soon became a goalkeeper of some promise. He would only make 10 appearances over the next three seasons.
He was a player for Falkirk.
Perhaps surprisingly for a winner of the Premier League with 84 caps for the Danes, Schmeichel boasts of playing for a number of other clubs.
There weren’t many highlights on his journey up the divisions, but that’s not to say there weren’t good ones.
In September 2009, he was inches away from scoring an audacious overhead kick for Notts County, but he helped them to the League Two title at the end of that season. He kept nine clean sheets in a 19-game run as the Foxes were promoted to the top-flight.
He told the Scotsman last year that he always looked for Falkirk’s results. I only look at fond memories.
A winner in the premier league.
While people tend to remember Jamie Vardy’s goals, his role in the triumph shouldn’t be overlooked.
Peter Cech made 100 saves at a rate of four per game, more than any other goalkeeper in that season, but second only to the 15 clean sheets kept by Peter Schmeichel.
The only biological father and son duo to have won the English top-flight title was Kasper and Peter. The age of the two men was the same as when United won the first title in 1993.
The king of penalty is Penalty king.
He never did match his dad’s 11 career goals scored, but he has stopped 26 penalty kicks for club and country to date.
He saved penalties at home and away against Sevilla in order to help secure a win in the last 16. Some of the people who have found themselves on the wrong side of a Schmeichel spot-kick save include Mo Salah, Harry Kane, Luka Modric, Romelu Lukaku, and Robin van Persie.
Kane missed a chance to convert from close range as England lost to Italy in the final of Euro 2020.
Are you coming home?
After keeping three clean sheets in the first three games of the season for Manchester City, the FA looked into the possibility of him changing his international allegiance to England, but their pleas fell on their heads.
His third senior cap was a 1-0 defeat to England in which he pulled off a string of impressive saves, earning praise from Roy Hodgson, and he later surpassed his father’s record of minutes without conceding for the national team when he shouted out in the opening game of the World Cup
Has it been back? Ahead of the meeting with England two years later, a journalist asked if football was going to do it.
Nice fans should find themselves on the winning side more often now that this great Danes call the Cte d’Azur home.
