The same age, but with very different careers. Including this final being written at the European Championship. Manuel Neuer and Kasper Schmeichel, both born in 1986, are playing for the quarterfinals tonight, and curiously this is only the second time they have faced each other. The first 3 years ago in Austria, a friendly match between Germany and Denmark which ended 1-1. Always with the national teams therefore, never at club level. Because the Dane’s career actually touched the boundaries of great football. Yes, with Claudio Ranieri the son of art conquered the Premier League in the Leicester miracle of 2016, but the English team has never been a regular customer of the Champions League. A competition that Neuer started attending when he was at Schalke and has never given up.
Advice
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In the 2011 Champions League, Schalke, after eliminating Inter in the quarter-finals, reached the semi-finals where they faced Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson was looking for a goalkeeper who could replace Van der Sar and Peter Schmeichel, father of Kasper and hero of Ferguson’s United, not only advised his former coach to take the German, but said he was sure that Neuer would arrive at Old Trafford. No: the goalkeeper from Gelsenkirchen was already close to Bavaria and went to Bayern for 25 million euros. And the rest is history: treble shortly after, in 2013, and then again in 2020.
The competition
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With Germany and Denmark the two have 122 (Manuel) and 104 (Kasper) appearances, they are national monuments. Schmeichel is in a declining phase, Leicester, Nice and Anderlecht have been his clubs in the last 3 years, but here in Germany he doesn’t have much competition: behind him are Ronnow of Union Berlin and his heir at Leicester, Hermansen . Neuer’s situation is very different, because he plays against Ter Stegen who was phenomenal last year at Barcelona and this year, having overcome his physical problems, has returned to a very high level. And Neuer put his own spin on it: first the injury after the terrible world championship in Qatar suffered while skiing which kept him sidelined for months, then the rust to get rid of to shine again.
The parades
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This year Neuer has shown flashes of greatness with Bayern, but he ended up in the crosshairs for the Bernabeu duck in the Champions League semi-finals which gave Joselu the first of his two goals and gave Madrid the foothold for yet another absurd “remontada ” of Champions. Then for the German goalkeeper a good save in the friendly against Greece and the bar raised at the European Championship: the double intervention on Szoboszlai’s free kick against Hungary was incredible, the flight on Xhaka’s fireball to avoid the 2-0 was excellent of Switzerland just before the Germans equalised.
Interviewed by the father
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Denmark drew the 3 games played and Schmeichel made a nice save on Watkins against England, but for now he has stood out for two other reasons: the now famous “Danish hold”, the save with the elbows bent at chest height, waiting for the ball to enter between them and then closing in a vice around the ball, and an interview with his father Peter, who works for the American TV Fox, in a mixed zone. Dad who can be a great inspiration to him: in the 1992 European Championship in Gothenburg he led Denmark to the continental title, recalled from holidays due to the dramatic exclusion of war-torn Yugoslavia. The final ended with a 2-0 victory for Denmark against Germany. Manuel was 6 years old, Kasper was still 5. Today it’s their turn.
