Evolution Of Goalkeeping: Kasper & Peter Schmeichel Examine The Position

For Father’s Day, our resident goalkeeping father-son duo sat down to talk about the evolution of goalkeepers.

Both Kasper and Peter Schmeichel won the Premier League, and they both represented Denmark as the starting goalkeeper at their World Cups. They have seen it all and have been two of the best goalkeepers in the world during their respective eras. Normally, they keep their keeper talk with each other to their native Danish, but we were lucky enough to get them to go long in English. 

During the 2026 World Cup, Peter, 62, and Kasper, 39, sat down and discussed many topics about their position on the pitch. Here is what stood out.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

On Gloves And Balls:

Peter: Growing up as a goalkeeper, we didn’t have gloves, so gloves came into the game around the time I became a senior player — 18 years of age. I got my first pair of gloves when I was 18. I did use garden gloves in the winter because it was cold, but they didn’t do anything other than keep you relatively warm.

That was a good thing because your catching technique was improved, and then, of course, gloves came in, and it was a little bit weird to begin with, and the quality of the gloves wasn’t great. You had to buy them yourself, relatively expensive, and then you know the foam started to wear off very, very quickly. You looked at this, you knew you couldn’t afford a new pair until six months later. So I opted a few times, even when I was a senior player, to play without gloves.

With the catching and all that — your basic technique was a lot better, but I like to throw the ball. So throwing the ball without gloves made it more accurate, and I could throw it longer. And then, of course, gloves came into the game, and the evolution of that improved, and of course, by the time I started to become a professional player, you couldn’t play without [them].

Peter Schmeichel celebrates winning the English Premier League with Kasper in May 1994. (John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)

Kasper: I would investigate exactly the altitude we were playing in. I’d see what type of pitch it was. I’d be going to the referees to make sure they watered the pitch. I’d be training with the ball for a long time beforehand. I’d make sure which gloves it was, because I took a pair of gloves out of the packet, and they were ready to go.

I use the Vaseline trick. So for people that don’t know, most goalkeepers these days — they’ll have Vaseline on their gloves because Vaseline dries it out a little bit, but it gives incredible grip on certain balls. This ball, the World Cup ball, it works great when it’s wet. It works great when it’s dry. 

If you use a Premier League ball, it works great when it’s wet, not great when it’s dry. So, if you’re in a drier condition, you do one thing. If you’re in wet conditions, you do another thing.

On Changes In Conditioning And Coaching:

Kasper: When you were with the national teams, that was when you had three coaches, and I actually found that I didn’t enjoy the three. I enjoyed it when we had a big group of goalkeepers, because I felt I could learn from others. I’d always watch and see what I could learn, but I felt we could make things more realistic.

I watched a lot of the stuff you did. It was very much repetition. You always talk to me about repetition, repetition, repetition, about catching. So, my pre-training work would be kicking the ball up against the wall, just catching, just practicing all the time so it became muscle memory. 

Now, goalkeeper coaching has changed a lot. You’ve watched me train, I’ve watched you train, and it’s slightly different. So, how was it different when you played?

Kasper Schmeichel and Denmark were eliminated in the round of 16 at the 2018 World Cup. (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Peter: When I became a professional football player, we only had one coach. We didn’t have an assistant coach. It was one coach and no goalkeeping coach on full-time, but I had a guy that I saw twice a week. 

Now, this philosophy is that everything you do as a goalkeeper, training should be away from the team. The team should never see you do that. Taking part in everything that the outfield players are doing is important, because it is a team at the end of the day, and they need to trust you in every department of football.

On Game-Changing Keepers Manuel Neuer And Ederson:

Kasper: In my world, there are three people that change goalkeeping forever, you being the first. You brought in a certain style. The way you changed the game, it was the domination of the box, and it was the fast counterattacks. 

Then we had Manuel Neuer in 2014 with the sweeper keeper, and then we had Ederson playing with the feet. 

I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts about Neuer and Ederson. How do you see them? I have my view of them. What’s your view of those two and how they transformed goalkeeping?

Peter: [The] first time I saw Neuer live, he played for Schalke against Manchester United, and he played a blinder. He made an incredible save right at the death of the game, which knocked Manchester United out that day. … I’m looking, and I think, ‘Whoa, this guy.’

Manuel Neuer made an impression on Peter Schmeichel when he played for Schalke 04 against Manchester United. (Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)

For a couple of years, I tried to persuade [former Manchester United manager] Alex Ferguson to sign him, because I saw him, and I wanted somebody to continue what I did. I felt it was really important that we had somebody who could do the same things: control the box, get the team to play higher up the pitch, find those channels [going forward] when need be. And he had this young lad here, absolutely fantastic. 

Ederson is taking playing with your feet to the next level. I’ve never seen anything like that.

On Penalty Shootout Strategy:

Kasper: For me, it was always about control. We actually used a mentalist, a guy that guesses things that you’re thinking, but they’re putting it in your head. So, we actually asked one of those to see what we can actually do to influence a taker, and it would be things like over emphasizing certain words. In a VAR situation when the referee is out checking, I had a chance to talk to the taker. I’d overemphasize words like over or right or left, or try to do different things that they kind of taught us to look for. Can I get some kind of influence? 

We had faced a penalty against Peru in the World Cup 2018. I kept overemphasizing the word over, “Don’t hit this over,” all these kinds of things, emphasizing the word over. Whether it made a difference, I don’t know. 

But by the way, yeah, the ball is still going.

Kasper Schmeichel celebrates Christian Cueva’s penalty miss against Denmark at the 2018 World Cup. (Elsa/Getty Images)

Peter: I ended up in quite a few penalty shootouts, and I always thought, “I have no control here,” so I needed to gain a little bit of control. All this play-acting and trying to get that was not for me. How do I get control? 

Well, the whistle blows after extra time. It’s gone. I know it’s a penalty shootout. I haven’t got a clue who the five will be. I don’t know whenever they step up, which foot they’re going to hit it with. I don’t know where they’re gonna hit it. I don’t know what height and then what pace. 

So, how do I get control in that situation? Well, I always make my mind up. “OK, I’m facing five penalties today. I’m going to go two to the left, one to the right, one to the left, and one to the right,” and I would stick by that. That’s my lottery.

On Where The Goalkeeper Position Is Going:

Kasper: The times are changing all the time now. Football is going in trends.

What does the next goalkeeper look like? For me, we’re now seeing players coming out of academies that are being released that aren’t maybe good enough to be outfield, and they’re looking at their physical profile and saying, “Can we transform them to be goalkeepers?” Because we’ve had the big, tall goalkeepers that were very dominant in the air. 

We went to some of the smaller ones, very good with their feet. Now, with the set pieces back again, we’re going to the slightly taller ones. 

So, I’m looking at it, thinking we’re going to see a mixture between a Neuer, [Real Madrid and Belgian keeper] Thibaut Courtois and an Ederson. We’re looking for 6-foot-4 guys, 6-foot-6 guys that can do that.

Peter: I think the requirement of being able to control your box better is going to come back in. You always have to look at someone like Pep Guardiola, what he’s thinking. So, when he brought [Italian keeper] Gianluigi Donnarumma to Manchester City, it was because of Arsenal’s dominance on set pieces. So, he also brought Abdukodir Khusanov in, who’s a big tall guy. He started to play Nico O’Reilly, who’s even taller. He also had Rúben Dias, Erling Harland — big, tall players.

When you contrast that to the team that he’d had at Barcelona, when nobody was more than 150, 175 centimeters, they were small guys, very quick on their feet. He’s thinking, “Well, now we have somebody thinking on set pieces, we can now take advantage and score goals. Well, I’m going to contract that. I’m going to put some big guys in there, so you don’t have a chance.” In that, you encourage your goalkeepers to actually come out and punch the ball or catch the ball.

Peter Schmeichel appeared at the 1998 World Cup for Denmark. (Mark Sandten/Bongarts/Getty Images)

And I don’t think, at the moment, in the Premier League, there’s anyone better than Donnarumma. It doesn’t look like you know he’s got it under control, but trust me, he has. He gets out there for every ball, and he just punches it away, big, strong. …

Now, when everyone [is] focusing so much on set pieces, I think it becomes more important that a goalkeeper can actually come out and punch the ball or catch it. And I think because of the other thing you said, are we going to see more long balls? I think we’re going to see a lot more direct play, as we’ve already seen in this World Cup, which I really, really do welcome.