Kasper Schmeichel is relishing Leicester City’s forthcoming venture back into European competition – something of a norm these days for the East Midlands club. The three times Danish Footballer of the Year has come a long way in the last ten years, going from England’s second tier to the pinnacle Premier League domestic success, as well as making the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Kasper Schmeichel said “It’s been an amazing journey. I joined here nearly 10 years ago now and we’ve experienced a bit of everything. I felt welcome from the first day I was here and it feels like a family, and, like family, you go through ups and downs together, and it’s been amazing. Now, we’re on a new adventure and we’re looking forward to that. Obviously when I joined, we were in the Championship and the goal was to reach the [UEFA] Champions League. We’ve achieved that goal once and we’re looking again to achieve the same kind of things. This year, it’s European football again for us and we’re looking forward to that. It’s a shame we can’t share it with our fans at the moment,” he said, “but let’s hope, let’s cross our fingers, that we get to a stage where we can do that again. We approach the campaign like we do every campaign with old clichés of ‘one game at a time’ but they’re clichés because they’re true. We take one game at a time and we’ve had a very good start up to now in the Premier League, looking to build again on that. I think it’ll be different this year because, obviously, there’s no fans, so, at the end of the day, you’re in the bubble, where you travel, you get to the hotel, you stay there, you play the game, and you leave again. You don’t really have any interaction with the city, you don’t have any interaction with the fans or the place where you are. I think it’ll be a different experience this year but let’s hope we get to a stage soon in society where we can start getting back to sharing those kinds of moments and having fans back. They support us from home, we feel that, but it’s such a shame for the fans, particularly, not to be able to experience that again. We gave them one great experience in the Champions League a few years ago and, obviously, the goal is always to get back into European football so we can have those memories together. This time it’s going to be slightly different but we’ve just got to make the most of it.”
Brendan Rodgers’ charges are preparing to embark on their latest journey in European football in the Europa League group stages, kicking off at the King Power Stadium against FC Zorya Luhansk on 22 October. The Foxes will face also SC Braga and AEK Athens in Group G over the coming three months Returning to the European stage for the fifth time in the club’s history will present new challenges for Brendan Rodgers’ squad – who head into the international break sitting third in the Premier League. Europa League group stage fixtures will be competed on Thursday evenings over the next three months and Schmeichel says the players are ready for gruelling run of fixtures.
