Iker Casillas

• 1. Introduction

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  Iker Casillas Fernández was born on the 20th of May 1981 in Móstoles, a town in the province of Madrid, to a civil servant and a hairdresser. His father, José Luis, spent his spare time filling out football prediction pools. On one particular weekend, when Iker was seven or eight years old, he forgot to post his father's entry. José Luis had correctly predicted all fifteen results. The family lost an estimated 1.2 million euros. Football, it seemed, had already decided it would be the one to give and take in this household.

  That child would go on to become one of the most decorated goalkeepers in the history of the sport. He would lift the World Cup. He would lift the European Championship, twice. He would make 177 appearances in the UEFA Champions League and end his career having played more than a thousand professional matches. And he would do all of it under a nickname the fans gave him freely: San Iker, Saint Iker.

  How does a teenager from Móstoles become the last line of defence for a generation of Spanish football? What separated Casillas from every other goalkeeper of his era? And what happened when the invincible keeper started to show cracks?

• 2. La Fábrica's Gift

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  Casillas entered Real Madrid's youth academy, known as La Fábrica, in the 1990-91 season. He was a child working his way through a system that had produced some of Spanish football's finest players, and by November 1997, still only sixteen and still technically a junior, he was called up to sit on the senior squad's bench for a Champions League match against Rosenborg.

  He spent a season with Real Madrid's C-team in the fourth tier. When the first team came calling in the 1999-2000 season, he was ready. On the 15th of September 1999, he started a Champions League group stage match against Olympiakos. He was eighteen years and 177 days old, making him the youngest goalkeeper ever to appear in the competition at that point. A record that stood until October 2017, when Mile Svilar broke it.

  Three days before that Olympiakos appearance, Casillas had made his La Liga debut in a 2-2 draw against Athletic Bilbao at San Mamés Stadium. He was playing at the top of two competitions simultaneously, still a teenager, still learning the senior game.

  Then came May 2000. Real Madrid faced Valencia in the Champions League final. Casillas started in goal. He was nineteen years and four days old. Real Madrid won 3-0, and Casillas became the youngest goalkeeper in history to play in and win a Champions League final. His career had barely begun, and he already had a record no one could take from him.

• 3. A Keeper Saves a Final

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  The 2001-02 campaign brought Casillas his first serious setback. Poor performances cost him his place in the side, and backup César Sánchez took over. It looked like the story might be over before it had fully started. Then came the 2002 Champions League Final, and everything changed again.

  Sánchez was injured in the final minutes. Casillas came on. Facing a rampant Bayer Leverkusen side, he pulled off several key saves to deny them the title. Real Madrid won 2-1. A goalkeeper who had been dropped came on as a substitute and helped win European football's biggest club prize.

  From that moment, Casillas rebuilt. By the 2007-08 season he was at the height of his powers, conceding only 32 goals in 36 La Liga matches and claiming the Zamora Trophy, awarded to the best goalkeeper in Spain's top flight. On the 14th of February 2008, Real Madrid rewarded him and club captain Raúl with contracts for life. Casillas signed an extension that would keep him at the club until 2017, with an automatic renewal if he played 30 competitive matches in the final season, and a buy-out clause of 113 million pounds.

  In February 2009, he surpassed Paco Buyo's record of 454 matches played for a goalkeeper at Real Madrid, becoming the club's most-capped goalkeeper of all time at only 27 years old. When Spanish media reported that Manchester City had launched a bid of 129 million pounds for him, the club denied it. Casillas himself said he had no intention of leaving. Real Madrid was the only club he had ever known.

• 4. Mourinho's Shadow

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  On the 22nd of December 2012, manager José Mourinho dropped Casillas for a La Liga match against Málaga, naming Antonio Adán instead. It was the opening move in what became a prolonged and damaging dispute. Some accounts alleged that Casillas, or those close to him, had passed internal club information to the press. A faction of Real Madrid supporters turned on him, giving him the nickname "topor" - a portmanteau of "topo" and "portero", meaning mole and goalkeeper in Spanish.

  In January 2013, Casillas suffered a serious injury. Mourinho used the opportunity to sign Diego López from Sevilla, and López kept the first-team spot even after Casillas had recovered. When Mourinho left the club at the end of that season, Spanish midfielder Andrés Iniesta publicly criticised the manager for how he had treated Casillas.

  Carlo Ancelotti's arrival for the 2013-14 season brought little immediate change in the league, where López remained first choice. But Casillas held on to his place in the Champions League and Copa del Rey. In the Copa del Rey, he set a new record of 962 consecutive minutes without conceding. On the 16th of April, he captained Real Madrid as they beat Barcelona 2-1 at Valencia's Mestalla Stadium in the final.

  Then, on the 24th of May 2014, Casillas captained Real Madrid in the Champions League final against Atlético Madrid in Lisbon. Atlético took the lead through Diego Godín from what was partly an error by Casillas. Sergio Ramos equalised in injury time. Real Madrid went on to win 4-1 in extra time, lifting the trophy for the tenth time in their history. Casillas had his third Champions League winner's medal, despite one of the most difficult seasons of his professional life.

• 5. Porto and a New Record

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  After 25 years with Real Madrid, Casillas signed with Porto on the 11th of July 2015 on a free transfer, agreeing a two-year deal with the option of a one-year extension. The departure was not clean. His parents stated publicly that he had been forced out by club president Florentino Pérez. Former teammate Xavi, who had left Barcelona that same summer after a comparably long career, said Real Madrid had been ungrateful.

  On the 29th of September 2015, in a 2-1 home win over Chelsea, Casillas made his 152nd Champions League appearance, overtaking Xavi's record to become the player with the most appearances in the competition. Three weeks later, on the 20th of October 2015, in a 2-0 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv, he recorded his 51st Champions League clean sheet, breaking Edwin van der Sar's record for the most in the competition's history.

  On the 14th of March 2017, making his 175th appearance in UEFA club competitions in a 1-0 away defeat to Juventus, Casillas passed Paolo Maldini as the player with the most appearances in European club football.

  On the 2nd of April 2018, he played his 1,000th professional match, a 2-0 loss at Belenenses. The following month, he helped Porto win their first Primeira Liga title since 2013. On the 11th of December 2018, in a 3-2 away win over Galatasaray, Casillas became the first player to reach the Champions League knockout stage nineteen times, and only the second player after Cristiano Ronaldo to win one hundred Champions League matches. He had surpassed Ryan Giggs's record by appearing in his 20th consecutive Champions League campaign that season.

• 6. Heart, Silence, Retirement

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  On the 1st of May 2019, during Porto's morning training session, Casillas suffered an acute myocardial infarction. He was rushed to hospital from the club's training ground. That same evening, from his hospital bed, he posted a statement on Twitter with a photograph of himself giving a thumbs up, thanking people for their support. He was discharged on the 6th of May.

  Later that month, it was announced that his wife, sports journalist Sara Carbonero, had been diagnosed with cancer.

  Casillas returned for pre-season training in July 2019. Porto gave him a role with the coaching staff while he continued his recovery. By November he had resumed training. He made 31 league appearances in 2018-19 before the heart attack cut his season short. In the 2019-20 season, he made no further league appearances.

  On the 4th of August 2020, Casillas officially announced his retirement from professional football. He had ended where he started, with Porto serving as the final chapter of a playing career that spanned more than two decades. In July 2020, he was reported to have returned to Real Madrid as an advisor to Florentino Pérez. In December 2020, he was appointed deputy to the Real Madrid Foundation's chief executive. The boy from Móstoles who had once cost his family 1.2 million euros by forgetting to post a football slip would spend his post-playing life inside the game that had consumed him since childhood.

• 7. Spain's Untouchable Decade

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  At the 2002 FIFA World Cup, Casillas arrived as the understudy to Santiago Cañizares. Cañizares withdrew from the tournament after a freak injury, and Casillas, aged 21, stepped in as first choice. In the round of 16 against the Republic of Ireland, he saved a penalty in regular time and two more in a shootout Spain won 3-2, after the match had ended 1-1 after extra time. In the quarter-final against co-hosts South Korea, one of his saves during a 0-0 draw was rated by FIFA as one of the top ten saves of all time. Spain were eliminated on penalties, losing 5-3.

  Six years later, Casillas was made captain of Spain for UEFA Euro 2008 following the exclusion of his Real Madrid teammate Raúl. In the quarter-final he saved penalties from Antonio Di Natale and Daniele De Rossi as Spain eliminated Italy with a 4-2 shootout win after a goalless draw on the 22nd of June. On the 29th of June 2008, Spain beat Germany 1-0 in the final. Casillas became the first goalkeeper-captain to lift the UEFA European Championship trophy.

  At the 2010 World Cup, Spain lost their opening match 1-0 to Switzerland after an error by Casillas. They did not lose again. On the 11th of July 2010, Casillas captained Spain to their first World Cup title with a 1-0 win over the Netherlands in extra time. He kept a joint-record five clean sheets in the tournament, conceded a joint-record two goals, and saved a penalty in the quarter-final against Paraguay. He made two crucial stops from Arjen Robben in the final with the score level at 0-0. He won the Golden Glove as the tournament's best goalkeeper. In lifting the trophy, he became only the third goalkeeper-captain ever to do so, after Gianpiero Combi in 1934 and Dino Zoff in 1982.

  At Euro 2012, Casillas played all five matches Spain needed to retain the European Championship title. He kept five consecutive clean sheets and went 509 minutes without conceding, breaking Dino Zoff's longstanding record of 494 minutes. The single goal he conceded in the tournament, from Antonio Di Natale in Spain's opening match, came in a 1-1 draw. Spain then defeated Italy 4-0 in the final on the 1st of July 2012. That day, Casillas also became the first player in history to record 100 international wins for their country. His unbeaten run with Spain eventually reached 817 minutes before Olivier Giroud ended it with an injury-time goal on the 16th of October 2012 in a World Cup qualifying match.

• 8. The Records He Left Behind

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  Gianluigi Buffon described Casillas as the best goalkeeper of his era with his hands. Former goalkeeper Manuel Almunia, speaking in 2017, put it more specifically: "Iker's a strong goalkeeper, leaps well, good diving in either direction... between the posts he moves like a cat." Gordon Banks, watching Casillas make an extraordinary save against Diego Perotti of Sevilla in October 2009, said his reflexes were incredible and that he would become one of the best goalkeepers in the history of the game.

  The records bear that out. Casillas holds the most consecutive seasons in the UEFA Champions League, with twenty. He was the first goalkeeper to win one hundred Champions League matches. He was the first player to reach the knockout stage of the competition nineteen times. He holds the most international clean sheets of any goalkeeper, finishing with 102. He appeared six consecutive times in the UEFA Team of the Year, from 2007 to 2012, a record for a goalkeeper. He was named IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper five times, a record he shares with Buffon and Manuel Neuer.

  On the 13th of November 2015, in a 2-0 friendly win over England in Alicante, Casillas kept his 100th international clean sheet, becoming the first goalkeeper, male or female, ever to reach that number. His 167 caps for Spain make him the second-most-capped player in the national team's history, behind Sergio Ramos.

  In 2016, France Football named him the fourth greatest goalkeeper in history. He was named second-best goalkeeper of the 21st century by the same organisation that placed him behind Buffon on both that list and the ranking of the best goalkeepers of the past twenty-five years. His son Martín was born on the 3rd of January 2014 in Madrid, the same year his father captained Real Madrid to their tenth European Cup. In 2013, a street in Móstoles was renamed Avenida de Iker Casillas in his honour.