2. Peter Schmeichel (Denmark)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zazDqzLaLU The Great Dane is best known as a breed of dog, but there is no more fitting nickname for Peter Schmeichel, the greatest goalkeeper to ever play for Manchester United, if not for any team in the world at any point in history, given that he received the majority of 200000 votes in a 2001 Reuters poll for the best goalkeeper of all time. Schmeichel arrived in Manchester in 1991 for a modest fee of £505,000, later described by Sir Alex Ferguson as the bargain of the century. He increased his profile by winning the Euro 92 tournament as part of the unfancied Danish team, only invited to the competition in the first place following the expulsion of Yugoslavia, and quickly established himself as Uniteds dependable number one as a result. In the first season of the Premier League in 1992/93, Schmeichel kept 22 clean sheets as United secured the title, a feat they replicated in all but two of the Danes further six years at the club afterwards, though in 1994 he was nearly forced out of the club following a fallout with Sir Alex (something of a running trend for player departures). Never afraid to join the attack if the team was losing towards the end of a game (scoring a goal in 1995 because of this, a rare feat for a goalkeeper), Schmeichels final match for the club, the Champions League final, saw him go up for a corner in stoppage time at the end of the second half, which resulted in Teddy Sheringham scoring to bring United level with Bayern Munich in what became, a few minutes later, the third trophy of their historic treble. In the absence of regular captain Roy Keane, who was suspended, Schmeichel lifted the trophy in what was a highly emotional moment, bidding a supposed farewell to English football with a move to the less frantic Portuguese league, though between 2001 and 2003 he returned and made 29 appearances apiece for Aston Villa and Manchester City. His spiritual successor at the club is fellow Danish keeper Anders Lindegaard, though he has a long, long way to go before any real comparison to the two can be made.