The signing of Kasper Schmeichel ended months of speculation on who Celtic would draft in to replace Joe Hart.
The big Dane has a massive pedigree in the game with 105 caps for his country and winning the English Premier League, an FA Cup and the Community Shield with Leicester City.
The new Celtic goalkeeper also has experience of playing in Europe in the Champions League, Europa League and the Europa Conference League as well as representing his country in Euro 2012, 2018 and 2024.
And let’s not forget the small matter of facing France in the 2018 World Cup and making it to the last 16 of the tournament and narrowly missing making the quarter-finals after losing on penalties to Croatia.
The Dane has faced much adversity and challenge since he was a youth at Estoril back in 2000 but here, the new summer signing admits he is about to face what he calls one of the ‘biggest’ challenges of his career.
Schmeichel ‘looking forward’ to Celtic career
Kasper Schmeichel has had a colourful career full of ups and downs. Starting his professional career at Man City, making a loan move to Falkirk, and experiencing France with Nice and Belgium with Anderlecht, the experience the new Celtic man has picked up over the decades has been something else.
And here he explains how coming to Celtic could offer him his toughest test yet.
Schmeichel said [Celtic YouTube], “I think the biggest challenge is always making sure that you perform and that’s what I’m here to do.
“I’m brought here to do a job and to be the best I can be for the team to help this team keep winning, keep progressing.
“It’s a new kind of experience for me in the sense that I’m coming into a team that has a huge history of winning and that hasn’t been something I’ve done too many times in my life.
“So in that sense, I’m really looking forward to the challenge of coming into a club that’s used to excellence, that’s used to having the highest of standards and that’s the kind of thing I usually thrive on.
“So I’m looking forward to being a part of that.”
Schmeichel has made 723 career appearances and kept 231 clean sheets. And looking at how he presented himself in front of the assembled media, the Celtic goalkeeper looked confident and calm just like his predecessor, Hart.
The signing of the Denmark international looks like a very astute piece of business by Brendan Rodgers as not only will Schmeichel be that rock behind the Celtic defence, but the knowledge and experience Viljami Sinisalo and the academy goalkeepers can learn from him will be invaluable.
I’m genuinely excited to see what he can do for Celtic when the season kicks off in August as will many thousands of other Hoops fans.
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