Kasper Schmeichel is so chilled out about his contract situation he could easily go for a kip. And if the great Dane did doze off, the first thing he’d be dreaming about is securing more trophy success at Celtic.
Schmeichel has been a smash hit with the Hoops this season following his summer arrival and punters are desperate to see the club activate an extension clause on his contract rather than hitting the snooze button. The 37-year-old hasn’t had much time to think about it, far less sit down and discuss it with Brendan Rodgers and the team of Parkhead bean counters, given the games have been coming thick and fast.
Schmeichel has another one on Sunday with Kilmarnock up next in the Scottish Cup. And it’s picking up another piece of silverware that is more important to the keeper than lifting a pen. When asked if he was comfortable with the contract situation, Schmeichel smiled: “Very. If I was any more relaxed, I’d fall asleep! No, I’m pretty relaxed. It’s not my focus.
“The focus is winning. When you win, things like that, they sort themselves out. My only focus is to get to the next round of the cup.
“One thing at a time, one thing at a time. I’ve never been the type of guy that’s going to sit here and say, I want to do this, I want to do that. Again, I’m old enough and experienced enough to know that the next game is the most important, so that’s it.”
The next game is another big one as the Hoops kick off their defence of the Scottish Cup. Schmeichel got a taste in the Premier Sports Cup win before Christmas but he tuned in for last year’s Hampden showpiece win. The goalkeeper now fancies some of that action. He said: “I watched that final, I watched the celebrations and I was taken aback by that because it was amazing to watch. And definitely those kinds of things are the reason you want to play football.
“You’re aiming to play lots of matches, you want to get to those kinds of opportunities where you have a chance to write yourself in the history books and be a part of moments like that.”
Schmeichel lifted the FA Cup with Rodgers at Leicester City in 2021 and is bidding to join the elite club of players to have lifted the big knockout trophies on both sides of the border. One of whom is pretty familiar to him. Schmeichel said: “Joe Hart would have been one of those guys! But that’s not even on the radar right now. Like I say, my focus is always on the next game.
“I’m not even going to think about being in the final. I’m not going to be disrespectful to any opponent that we play against to go and think that we’re going to be in the final. Because if you do that, then all of a sudden your focus isn’t 100 per cent on the next game. Then that’s when you don’t get to finals.”
Schmeichel has experienced the romance of the cup at every level, from his loan spells with Darlington and Notts County, to being with the big guns like Manchester City. And we also can’t forget that sensational triumph for the Foxes over Chelsea in 2021.
He said: “We played a team that ended up winning the Champions League. We scored an incredible goal. We had a VAR goal against us cut off – it had all the drama you could imagine.
“We went through every emotion humanly possible over 95 minutes. The feeling of doing a thing like that is incredible. It’s different to winning a league. We were lucky enough with Leicester to win the league with a few games left, so we could enjoy it. But in a final, everything’s on the line. That’s what cups are. It’s different. You can’t go easy, you can’t take your foot off the pedal.
“You have to go 100 per cent because on any given day, giant killings, all these things can happen to any team. So you’ve got to respect the competition and the fact that it’s an all-or-nothing scenario.
“I love the cups. Like you say, I’ve been in the fourth division in England and played against Premier League teams and just to see what that does for a club. That’s why cup competitions are special. That you can do something like that.
“I’ve been lucky enough to be in a team good enough to go and win it.
“So I think with age and some experience, what you realise is how difficult it is to get to cup finals – and it’s even harder to go and win them. You appreciate them a lot more. And that’s why a competition like the Scottish Cup is massive.”
It’s also important for Celts to toughen up against Killie after Rodgers accused his side of going soft in the 3-3 draw in Dundee on Tuesday. Schmeichel said: “Yeah, it’s gone. I think the rule is you’re allowed to feel and kind of have whatever emotions you want from the game. And after midnight we move on.
“You can feel whatever joy or pain or anguish or whatever you’re feeling then. But the games come so thick and fast now that there’s no time to dwell. Every game we debrief and we see what we can do better. The aim is always to strive for perfection, even though we know that that’ll never be 100 per cent possible.
“When you look at our season overall, we’ve been very solid, but you’re never going to have it your own way in every single game.
“There’s always an opponent that’s trying to beat you and you’re never going to have it your own way. Even when you have a good, season, you’re always going to meet little periods of adversity or bumps in the road. It is all about how you react to those times.”