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Peter Schmeichel is best known for his eight years as the goalkeeper for Manchester United, the team he captained to victory in the dramatic 1999 Champions League Final, completing a treble for the club, along with the Premier League and the FA Cup. He is also the most capped player of all time for the Danish national team with whom he won the European Championships in 1992. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time. Here are seven things we learned when he spoke to Lauren Laverne on Desert Island Discs…

1. His childhood dream came true – literally

“When I was a kid [in Denmark], every night, I was falling asleep to this dream of playing for Manchester United, playing at Wembley in an FA Cup final and winning the game and being the hero,” he recalls. Not only did it come true, he won the FA Cup three times, the Premier League title five times, the League Cup and the Champions League.

2. He played with some of the biggest names in football, and not just on the pitch

As well as appearing for Manchester United alongside stars like Roy Keane, David Beckham and Andy Cole, Peter formed a more surprising musical partnership with French footballing idol and team-mate Eric Cantona following their 1996 FA Cup final win over Liverpool, in which Cantona scored the only goal.

“Eric and me - we were roommates for away trips. We stayed in the same hotel room and we had long chats about everything. I knew that Eric had begun to take trumpet lessons. And from a very early age, my father wanted me to be a pianist,” says Peter. “It was one of those rare moments where you had a little bit too much adrenaline still in your body - and maybe a little bit too much to drink as well - and there's a piano and whatever happens happens, and you get carried away…”

So what did this impromptu trumpet and piano duo perform?

“We tried to play My Funny Valentine. Eric loved My Funny Valentine [a classic jazz standard]. I know that his dream was to play My Funny Valentine. And it was part of his lessons.”

3. He didn’t decide to become a goalkeeper – he was told to play in goal

“I have to say I didn't have a choice,” says Peter. “My first training ever, it was in the local club where I grew up, and I was outfield for about three minutes… As a child I was a bit wild… and the coach, he was a bit scared of what I could do to all the other kids. So he said, ‘Why don't you try the goal?’ He was kind of keeping me away from the other kids. And very quickly, people came up to me and said, ‘Oh, you're very good’. And when grown-ups are telling you that you're good at something, at least for me, I then think I'm good at it, and I'm going to be better and I'm not going to disappoint these people. And that's how I ended up in goal.”

4. One of his discs takes him back to the music he heard in his childhood home

“My father was a musician and the house was full of music. My mother loved, absolutely loved, and to this day, loves classical music and will go literally anywhere in Copenhagen for any concert. She's 87 and she's still doing it,” says Peter. “I think we had about 50 LP records back then. And 49 of them were classical music, but one of them was jazz. On that record is a tune called Hymn to Freedom, which is a tune my sister and myself got to play during our piano lessons. I really, really like jazz piano and there is - for me - no better pianist.”

The track is Hymn to Freedom, the album is the classic Night Train and the pianist is the great Oscar Peterson.

5. Peter’s parents met in a truly remarkable way

The story starts in the late 1950s on a cruise ship travelling from Canada to Poland via Copenhagen. Peter’s mother was due to travel from Copenhagen to Canada, and back to Copenhagen, disembarking before the ship went on to Poland which was east of the Iron Curtain and required special permission and paperwork.

“But,” as Peter puts it, “she's a very curious type and she decided to... see if she could sneak herself on the trip to Poland.” Arriving in Gda艅sk she made her way to the seaside resort of Sopot where the play, A Taste of Honey, was on at the theatre. Peter picks up the story:

“And it was a massive sensation. We're in the Cold War here, a Western play in an Eastern Bloc country and it was impossible to get a ticket. And she really, really wanted to see that play while she was there. She spotted this guy. He had two tickets in his hands and she asked if she could have one of them. It was my father. And she persuaded him to part with one of these tickets and they fell in love and, and they got married in Poland.”

6. One of the greatest moments of his career brings bittersweet memories

“That's one of the highlights of my life, never mind my career,” says Peter of Denmark’s surprise victory in the 1992 European Championships held in Sweden. “We weren't qualified for the tournament to begin with but because of what was happening in Yugoslavia back then, the civil war and the atrocities… the international community decided to exclude Yugoslavia from everything, literally everything. And that included sport.”

“Since we finished runners up to Yugoslavia in qualification, they got kicked out of the Euros, and we took their place. At the time, it was very, very difficult, because you want to play these tournaments, but you don't want to play them against that background. And they [the Yugoslav football team] were already in Sweden, and we literally took over their facilities, you could say that there was even an atmosphere from them there.”

“I felt really, really bad for their players. It wasn't their fault. And I felt really, really bad for the people of Yugoslavia... I could understand the stand that the international community took, and something needed to be done… But we always felt that we were playing for them as well.”

7. Thanks to some builders and Phil Collins, Peter’s second wife Laura suddenly found out how famous he was

“I met Laura in a period where I was making changes in my life,” says Peter. “I fell in love and we had a little getaway in London and I didn't want the public to know that I was in a new relationship. I wanted to keep a low profile so I was wearing a scarf and a hat and everything. And Laura's looking at me and she's saying ‘How famous are you?’ Laura didn't know anything about football and she’s kind of ridiculing me a little bit.”

“We get out of the hotel, we go 100 yards and there's scaffolding on the right hand side and the builders they're going - and remember I'm completely covered up - ‘Hey, Schmeichel!’”

Laura looks at me and thinks ‘What?!’

“And then we go to the Champions League Final in Milan and this little guy comes up to me. I've never met him in my life but I know it's Phil Collins. I never met him but he's a big Man U fan… And Laura is next to me and she's completely, I mean she's completely, gobsmacked. That is the height of celebrity that Phil Collins comes up to you. Still to this day we talk about it as a funny story.”

Peter’s seventh disc is In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins.