Peter Schmeichel admitted he made the wrong decision to leave Manchester United after winning the Treble.
The legendary goalkeeper departed the club in the summer of 1999. The iconic 2-1 Champions League final triumph over Bayern Munich proved to be his last game for the Red Devils.
Schmeichel was named captain for the game following the suspension of usual skipper Roy Keane. So the Dane was able to hoist the trophy alongside his team-mates thanks to the late heroics of Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
His career in Manchester was littered with success, having won 10 major honours in just eight years. He cemented his legacy as one of the greatest goalkeepers in the history of the Premier League.
Schmeichel announced his intention to leave United at the end of his contract back in November 1998 and left for Sporting in the summer of 1999, where he won a league title in his debut season in Portugal. But speaking on Amazon Prime Video's new '99' documentary, the 60-year-old admitted that it wasn't the right decision to leave the club he had supported all his life.
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"I feel privileged wearing that armband in the Champions League final. I've been a Manchester United supporter all my life since I was a small child," Schmeichel said on the documentary.
Peter Schmeichel won 10 major honours in eight years with Manchester United (Press Association)"You know, I think back to it now, I don't think I made the right decision to leave. I just didn't know any better at the time." Following a two-year stint with Sporting, the ex-goalkeeper made a return to English football with Aston Villa in 2001, before leaving after just one season to join former neighbours Manchester City in what was a shock move.
The decision to play for United's bitter rivals angered some of his former team-mates, with Gary Neville still harbouring anger from Schmeichel's decision when he spoke in 2018. "He left Man United at the age of whatever he was, 35, and he said he was retiring, basically to go abroad," the former United captain said.
He won the league in his first season with Sporting Lisbon (Getty Images)"At the time when he came back, he played for Manchester City. You can't play for Manchester City. I'm a United fan and I can't play for Manchester City, I can't play for Leeds and I can't play for Liverpool.
"That's just written in stone. You just don't play for those clubs, irrespective of what happens. He'd won the treble with United in '99, said that he was retiring... he should have carried on playing for United for the next two or three years if that was the case. We struggled for a keeper between Peter and Edwin [van de Sar]."
99 is available exclusively on Prime Video, with all three parts having dropped globally.
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