Legendary Peter Schmeichel opens up on ‘massive regrets’ over Manchester United exit: ‘That was just stupid’

Peter Schmeichel believes he could have stayed on as Manchester United’s No.1 into his 40s had he not stayed true to his word and departed the club in the aftermath of their 1999 treble triumph.

Schmeichel’s final match in a Manchester United shirt was one of his greatest, cartwheels of delight at the Camp Nou after Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s late goals had earned Sir Alex Ferguson’s side their first Champions League title in 31 years. The Dane, 36 at the time, had been inspirational in United’s run to the final, as he had in them lifting the Premier League and FA Cup.

However, it had been a grueling few years for the man who, despite a few errors early in that trophy-laden season, was widely considered to be the best goalkeeper on the planet. Denmark had gone to the quarterfinals of the 1998 World Cup and, speaking on CBS Sports’ Kickin’ It interview series, Schmeichel revealed that Ferguson had requested he return for preseason training the following day to prepare for a Champions League qualifier against LKS Lodz.

In November 1998 Schmeichel announced that he would be leaving Manchester United when his contract expired at the end of the season, a decision that the club hierarchy tried to reverse in the afterglow of their European triumph. At the time he felt it was too late to change his mind — “we already packed the house” — but Schmeichel knows now that he made the wrong call.

“That was a silly decision,” he said. “That was just stupid. Why would you leave my United? I still had four more years. I still played really well for four more years and if I’d stayed, I probably could have played more, five, six years. That is something that I really truly regret. 

“I know my manager very well. I knew exactly what he was made of. I knew I could talk to him about everything, all my issues, and he would listen and he would accommodate any wishes that I had if I was still the player that he wanted to have. So I should have spoken to him and said, I want to play every game, but I also know I’m getting into a period where I probably can’t play every game and could we work around that? I should have done that and I should have stayed. I mean, why would I leave Man United?”

What stopped him? “Pride. The misconception there is that you had to be this tough guy, you had to be impregnable, otherwise you wouldn’t fit in, which I think is wrong. This is something I realized in later life, it has taken me many years to come to that conclusion.”

Schmeichel would go on to spend two seasons with Sporting in Portugal, an Old Trafford return nearly materializing in 2000 before Ferguson moved for Frenchman Fabian Barthez, before season long spells back in England with Aston Villa and Manchester City, retiring in 2003.

Just as the goalkeeper never quite found the right club for him post-United, so Ferguson struggled to find someone to fill Schmeichel’s boots. The likes of Barthez, Massimo Taibi and Tim Howard tried and failed to bring the same personality and fearlessness to the United goal that their predecessor had; not until Edwin van der Sar arrived in 2005 was the club set between the sticks again.

Schmeichel’s own sense of burnout was a sign of things to come for the sport, whose calendar now appears to be bursting at the seams with the introduction of the Club World Cup to a schedule that has already been the subject of much controversy. “We will see the effects [of the Club World Cup] this year,” he warned.

“That’s not looking after the players and I think that is wrong, and I think you should look after players more than that. And that’s definitely not only a mental side to it, but it’s also a physical side to it. You need breaks, you absolutely need breaks. 

“I think it really is important that you look at the mental side and you take care of players, You have bigger squads. So now Premier League squad is 25, you have five substitutions. If you think about when the Premier League was first introduced, you had two substitutions. Now if you are one of those players who not get subbed on, you don’t start the game, you can be out for a very, very long time. What’s that going to do to your mental health?”