Iker Casillas has left Real Madrid. 25 years after joining them as a nine year old he’s moving on to join Porto in the Portuguese Primeira Liga. Having come up through Real’s youth system, won a total of 18 trophies including five league titles and three Champions Leagues, and been club captain since 2010, Casillas’ departure shows a ruthlessness from the club which probably shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has watched Real’s dealings for any period of time.
Casillas is widely agreed to be one of the best goalkeepers of the past 25 years. As well as the trophies he’s won with Real Madrid, he has also won multiple goalkeeping awards including the International Federation of Football History and Statistics World’s Best Goalkeeper award a record five times, been named in the UEFA Team of the Year every year between 2007 and 2012, and the FIFA FIFPro World XI every year from 2008 to 20012. He was also the captain of Spain as they began their domination of world football, winning their first European Championship for 44 years in 2008, then their first ever World Cup in 2010, and another European Championship in 2012. He has been a natural leader on the pitch for years.
However, the past couple of seasons have been rocky ones for Casillas. After winning the World’s Best Goalkeeper award again during the 2011-2012 season, Jose Mourinho did the seemingly unthinkable in December 2012 and dropped Casillas to the bench. This was the beginning of a series of reported disagreements between Mourinho and Casillas that marked the first stage on the road to the once untouchable Casillas’ exit from Real. The disagreements behind the scenes continued, even after Mourinho left the club to return to Chelsea, culminating in one of the club’s greatest ever servants now leaving.
Real are perhaps the biggest football club in the world. Rated the most valuable team in the world by Forbes magazine, ten times winners of the European Cup/Champions League, and constantly fighting for dominance over their hated rivals Barcelona. For the board, perfection is everything, and once anything seems to be getting in the way of that, it gets removed. Football fans have given up trying to guess what’s happening with the constant revolving door of managers arriving and departing just as quickly. Carlo Ancelotti, a world class coach who has won league titles in Italy, England and France was hired in 2013 and fired in 2015, despite leading Real to the tenth Champions League trophy the club had been desperate for.
Players are also moved on swiftly, even after years of service; Casillas is not the first of Real’s heroes to have left the club in less than happy circumstances. The striker Raul also came through as a youngster and spent 16 years as a club figurehead. One of my favourite ever players, he is still the club’s top scorer with 323, ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo. Raul is also still Real’s most capped player, and was captain from 2003 until he left in 2010. Like Casillas, Raul also began to suffer criticism from the fans and the board, and decided to leave a club where he had seemed part of the furniture. Fernando Hierro was a rock in defence for them from 1989 until 2003, when he was released on a free transfer with barely any fanfare, although he has now returned as part of the coaching staff.
Iker Casillas is still only 34, relatively middle-aged for a goalkeeper; with enough luck he could continue playing for the next six years. He and many others, including me, may have thought that he would be at Real until the end of his career, but somehow it never seems to end that way with this team. Real’s search for perfection will go on, leaving many football fans to ask, what will it take to satisfy a club that has won a record number of European Cups, a record 32 league titles and become the richest in the world?
