He is captain of both Real Madrid and the Spanish national team, has won La Liga on five occasions and the Champions League twice. He has a World Cup winner’s medal and two European Championship titles with his country and is generally regarded as one of the finest goalkeepers ever. He has already amassed over 600 games for arguably the most famous club in the world and amazingly is still only 31 years old. He commands the respect of both teammates and rivals throughout the world and should be at the top of his game. However, Iker Casillas is on the bench.
The drama started at the end of December 2012 when Jose Mourinho picked Antonio Adan, normally the reserve keeper, to start a league match against Malaga. Everyone immediately questioned what was wrong with Casillas, a player who had only missed nine league matches during the last ten years. The reply that nothing was wrong seemed to surprise even the most faithful of Mourinho’s supporters, who failed to understand why a player of such quality and reliance had been benched in favour of a relatively untested backup.
Casillas didn’t complain about the situation, although he was quite clearly not used to sitting watching his teammates perform without him, something that he hadn’t experienced since being a teenager. He later suffered a hand injury during a match against Valencia and so Mourinho signed Diego Lopez from Sevilla because there was no other cover for this position. The new recruit played his first game against Barcelona in the Spanish cup and has retained the jersey ever since, despite Casillas recovering fully from his injury.
Rumours began that the fans favourite and Madrid idol had argued with his manager earlier on in the season regarding his apparent complacency and lack of form. The situation was extremely awkward for Florentino Perez, the chairman, and other important figures at the club because despite not wanting to publicly criticise the man in charge, they, like the press and fans, couldn’t believe that ‘Saint Iker’ was not first choice. We appear to be arriving to some form of conclusion now, as both Sergio Ramos, Pepe and other teammates have spoken out in defence of their goalkeeper and Mourinho seems unlikely to be staying in Spain. If the Portuguese coach does, as expected, leave the club, will Casillas regain the No 1 spot under whoever takes over next season, because if not then his World Cup place for Brazil 2014 could be under serious threat?