• Opinion: the fate of Iker Casillas
  • Officer. "The time has come to say goodbye"

It all started 23 years ago at the Cañaveral Institute in Móstoles and ends today, in full world confinement. Iker Casillas says goodbye to football definitely and does so leaving an immense legacy: a World Cup, two European Cups, three European Cups, six Leagues ... But beyond the record, Casillas leaves for great moments, good or bad, that They shaped his career and are part of the Spanish soccer folklore of the 21st century. Here is a selection of the top 10.

11/25/97: "Iker, can you go out for a moment?"

Films have been made with less. Most bad, everything is said. A Design class in their mid teens would rank high on a list of worst plans imaginable. Any kid would beg for a rescue and would be content with a fire drill that would make him change the classroom for the patio. On the other hand, a beardless 16-year-old Casillas came to see God under the bland appearance of a director of a Madrid institute who spoke on behalf of Real Madrid. He had to go to Trondheim, which said does not sound too stimulating, but that meant being the substitute goalkeeper of Real Madrid in a Champions League match.

09/12/99: "I was scared shitless"

At heart, Iker is a type of Bilbao who decided to be born in Madrid. There his name, there his childhood lived in the Zorroza neighborhood while his father served as a Civil Guard in the La Salve barracks, in years when doing so was buying death tickets. His legend would also start there, in the longed for 'Cathedral'. Illgner and Bizzarri injured (the elf has had it forever, it will be a recurring theme here) and the 18-year-old boy in the ring. "I thought, what have I done? I saw him so small and the goal so large," Toshack , the coach of that Madrid , recalled later . A draw to two and as a reminder of baptism its useless stretch in a goal from a lack of Guerrero .

05/15/02: "Cut my sleeves"

What were the odds? For anyone other than Casillas, none. But, alas, the elf. César had been chosen by Del Bosque for the assault on the Ninth and Iker was muttering his misunderstanding from the bench. Suddenly, César fell out of favor and, with 22 minutes to go, he had to leave. So certain was he that he would be a mere spectator that night in Glasgow that he didn't even cut the sleeves off his shirt. Javier Miñano did it for him, went out and collected anthological stops to sustain the final siege of the Leverkusen and proclaim himself, for the second time, champion of Europe. A month later, the elusive Cañizares colony also made him a starter with Spain. An era was beginning.

06/22/08: "It was a liberation"

So many generations of Spaniards grew up educated that the quarterfinals were Finisterre that no one imagined that beyond the ocean there was not an abyss but, why not, a New World. That victory against Italy was celebrated as a title because, message to 'millennials', it was the biggest national title in decades, that's how it was. From that night of glory in Spain, the best ever imagined, Cesc's decisive penalty , his career to nowhere to celebrate the demolition of the Italian wall , remained as an iconic summary . But before the two stops came from Casillas to Di Natale and De Rossi that changed everything.

10/04/09: "At that stop there was a lot of faith"

What nobody remembers of that day is that Real Madrid lost. But what difference does it make? Casillas was, 28 years old, at his soccer peak and that night against Sevilla in Nervión he gave birth to his masterpiece for posterity, the impossible stop takes flesh. Negredo serves the death pass for Perotti and Casillas activates the time machine to slow him down and transport himself to an immediate future that would allow him to stop the launch. The greatest miracle of the 'Saint'.

7/11/10: "What do you want me to say?"

Johannesburg, Iniesta , waka-waka and the Capdevila cube . The best night of our lives, crowned with the raising of the Holy Grail by those who were very guilty of that success. Robben could have changed the story, but Iker stopped the shot heads-up. He lunged to one side and pulled the toe of his boot to the other. The most eternal seconds ever lived ended with the ball blown by the goblin and lost by the baseline. At the celebration, no moment like the live kiss to Sara Carbonero , who was the reporter for Telecinco and also her partner, today the mother of her two children.

10/26/12: "We are the reflection of the good atmosphere"

Spanish sports were so drunk with success and they looked so badly at the navel at that time that Xavi and Casillas received the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports because they called for Guardiola's Barça and Mourinho's Madrid to stop being at war. Thus they became the only two athletes who have received this award twice. The bill, however, was expensive for Iker. In exchange for signing peace with Barça, the goalkeeper went to war with Mourinho. And nothing was going to be the same.

12/22/12: "I like Diego López more. It's simple"

The war, hitherto hidden, broke out in the last game in 2012. Casillas, captain and symbol, suddenly became the substitute goalkeeper for Adam. In the following duel, with Real Madrid already split in two, his expulsion forces him to enter. He regains ownership but is injured in a set with Arbeloa and that forces Madrid to sign a substitute, Diego López , very much to Mourinho's liking, as he himself vehemently defended. He would no longer play that season and his untouchable status was buried forever. Those months would change his career forever.

07/12/15: "C'est fini"

Alone, without friends, family, companions, or trophies. Nothing but tears and a note with farewell in French. That's how he wanted it, perhaps to stage the loneliness he felt in his Real Madrid epilogue, who knows. He did not know how to go on time and ended up doing it in the worst possible way, made up 24 hours later with, now, an act at the height of the legend. Two decades of miracles to end up being the greatest focus of conflict that the Bernabéu ever knew (or almost). Finiquito and goodbye. Porto was to be his new destination, his final station.

05/01/19: "I was afraid to walk, to sleep"

The disturbing news quickly reached Spain. Casillas had been admitted to a Porto hospital after suffering a heart attack in training. It was just a scare, but it hid a stubborn reality that the goalkeeper, now 37, refused to assume: he would never play soccer again. A year later, and as he prepares to stand up to Rubiales in the RFEF presidential elections, he has definitively said goodbye to soccer, perhaps the most important soccer player in the history of Spanish soccer.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Real Madrid
  • Iker Casillas
  • Sara Carbonero
  • sports
  • soccer
  • Spain National Soccer Team

Portuguese League 2019 - 2020Y Casillas set foot on the pitch again: the celebration of the Porto league

LaLiga Santander 2019 - 2020Iker Casillas will return to Real Madrid as club ambassador

LaLiga Santander 2019 - 2020 Bartomeu's great alibi

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