Kasper Schmeichel played a big part in one of English football’s most extraordinary achievements but is keen to credit team spirit as the driving force.
The Celtic goalkeeper won the Premier League with Leicester City in 2015-16 and followed it up with the Foxes’ first FA Cup win five years later. In between those incredible successes, Leicester owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was killed along with three fellow passengers and the pilot in a helicopter crash near the King Power Stadium.
Schmeichel looks back fondly at his time with the late Vichai and told former players Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Jill Scott, Jamie Carragher and Ian Wright about the heart behind the throne in Leicester’s golden season.
Leicester ‘were a different club’
Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, Schmeichel expressed his view that the Foxes were no ordinary team when they won the Premier League nine years ago.
“We had quite a set core at Leicester and we were a different club,” he said. “We always joked we were the best pub team in the world. We genuinely were. We still went for a drink together, even when we lost.”
38-year-old Schmeichel, who was ranked at no. 92 in FourFourTwo’s list of the best Premier League players of all time, joined Celtic from Anderlecht last summer, played more than 400 league matches in goal for Leicester.
“We also had an owner who was so different to anything I’ve ever experienced and probably ever will experience,” he said of Vichai.
“He did things right, and he was the catalyst for all this. Win or lose, we were having a good time – that was what it was about. He would take us out for dinners, he’d make sure that regardless of if we won or lost, that we’d still finish the evening properly.
“He never demanded us to win, he just demanded that we give our best. If we’d given our best, that’s what he said, ‘That’s all I can ask for’. He went above and beyond for every single player, but more than anything, he drove the collective.”
Vichai’s positive impact on his players lives, said Schmeichel, was a big influence on what Leicester achieved against all the odds in 2015 and then 2016.
“There was always an event and these amazing things that you’d never get to do. Meeting royalty at polo matches because his son played polo.
“If your family went on holiday to Thailand, he’d make sure they were looked after. He just looked after everyone and that just meant that everyone was willing to go that extra mile.”
Kasper Schmeichel was speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet.
