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(Image: REUTERS)

The Foxes keeper picked up the injury punching the ball clear in the first-half of Leicester’s goalless draw away to Copenhagen in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

But Schmeichel soldiered on, unaware of the full extent of the injury, and produced a stunning save at the death to deny Andreas Cornelius and take his side to the brink of the knockout stages in their first season in Europe’s elite competition.

Schmeichel’s late heroics also saw Leicester become the first team ever to keep four clean sheets in their opening four games of the Champions League.

Immediately after the game, the Denmark No. 1 stopped to conduct interviews but gave no indication he was in any discomfort.

But after the pain increased he was taken to a local clinic where the fracture was revealed.

(Image: REUTERS)

Schmeichel saw a specialist in England yesterday and the initial fears are that four weeks on the sidelines is the best-case scenario.

Second choice keeper Ron-Robert Zieler will step in starting with the league fixture against West Brom on Sunday.

The German, signed from Hannover in the summer, deputised for Schmeichel earlier in the season when the big Dane had minor surgery to repair a hernia problem.

It had been a triumphant return for Schmeichel, who was born in Copenhagen and owns a house just a few minutes from the Parken Stadium where Denmark play their international matches.

Schmeichel has been the scourge of Copenhagen in the competition. He made a brilliant save right at the end of the home game which Leicester won 1-0.

(Image: GETTY)

In Copenhagen he was at it again, keeping out Cornelius’s header that seems certain to book Leicester’s spot in the knockout stages.

But he dismissed his heroics as just part and parcel of doing what he gets paid for.

Schmeichel said: “Listen, that’s what I’m there to do. It’s my job. That’s all it is. We weren’t coming here happy to go home with a point

“We came here to win. We’re disappointed not to have got the victory but when you look at it overall we have to be happy.

“Playing here was a kind of bittersweet type feeling. We’re happy to get a clean sheet but we could maybe have nicked it. So could they, so on reflection it was probably a fair result.”

He added: “A clean sheet is always nice and it tells you something but I’d rather win 2-1 than get a 0-0.

“Clean sheets give you a platform to build on. Four clean sheets is testament to how well we have defended as a team.

“We defend from the front and then the lads in front of me throw their bodies at everything.”