Kasper Schmeichel says a happy goodbye to Leicester City as he moves to Nice - The Warm-Up

THURSDAY'S BIG STORIES Great Dane Ad/> Kasper Schmeichel is on his way to Nice. If you'd asked Schmeichel, 11 long years ago, if he thought joining Leicester gave him a shot at a league title, he'd probably have said «Absolutely!» He was being brought in by Sven-Goran Eriksson, after all, a manager with titles across three countries. And Leicester were in the Championship, a notoriously open league.

TransfersRamsey joins Nice on a free transfer, signs a three-year contract01/08/2022 AT 20:32 If you'd asked him about the Premier League title, however — yes, yes, we're very annoying — then he might have done one of those big booming goalkeeper laughs. Or he might have looked all thoughtful and said something sportspersonlike. «I'm an ambitious player and I want to win trophies, and I believe in my own abilities.» But in truth, nobody would have asked him.

It would have been a silly question and a waste of everybody's time. It was impossible then, impossible when they did it, and it remains impossible now even after it actually happened. Championship winner, Premier League winner, FA Cup winner: it's a pretty remarkable return for a goalkeeper playing outside the biggest teams at this point in football history.

It's also more than Gordon Banks (League Cup winner, 1964) or Peter Shilton (Division Two, 1971) managed in their time at the club, the losers. And Schmeichel leaves with another precious and rare victory: he does so on his own terms. The risk with undroppable goalkeepers is that they hang around too long, and everybody has to make polite conversation while they clatter around destroying their own reputation.