Former Real Madrid and Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas has retired from football at the age of 39.


Casillas made 725 appearances for Real during a 16-year career at the Bernabeu, winning three Champions League titles and five La Liga crowns.

He also helped Spain win the 2010 World Cup and two successive European Championships in 2008 and 2012.

Casillas joined Porto in 2015 but has not played since suffering a heart attack during training in April 2019.

During his recovery he was given a role on the club’s coaching staff in July 2019.

He made 156 appearances for the Portuguese side, winning two Primeira Liga titles and one Portuguese Cup.

Casillas won 167 international caps for Spain between 2000 and 2016. Only Sergio Ramos has made more appearances for the national side.

Real Madrid defender Ramos posted a photo of himself with Casillas on Twitter as a tribute to his former team-mate.



Announcing his retirement on Twitter, Casillas said: “The important thing is the path you travel and the people who accompany you, not the destination to which it takes you.

“I think I can say, without hesitation, that it has been the path and the dream destination.”

Real Madrid said Casillas, who joined the Spanish giants at the age of nine, was the best goalkeeper in the 118-year history of the club.

“Real Madrid wants to show its appreciation, admiration and love for one of the greatest legends of our club and world football,” read a statement on the club’s website.

“Iker Casillas belongs to the heart of Real Madrid and will be so forever.”

In February, he announced his intention to run for the presidency of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), before later withdrawing because of the “exceptional social, economic and health situation” the country was suffering during the Covid-19 pandemic.

On reaching 100 UEFA Champions League appearances …
I never imagined I’d play 100 Champions League games. Looking back at it now, with this new perspective, I get a bit scared, because it means a lot of games, a lot of moments. It’s a difficult record to reach but, above all, I feel extremely proud to have won [the competition] three times and managed to stay in the Champions League for so long.

On his first call-up to the Real Madrid senior squad …
It’s a good anecdote because it was back in 1997 and I was in design class. We were talking about Real Madrid, about how they were doing at the time. It was late November, I think, and Real Madrid were struggling in the league. I think they were third or fourth and getting bad results, but things were going fine in the Champions League. They had an important game against Rosenborg coming up in Norway.

At that point, the high-school principal came into the classroom. Everyone knew I played in Real Madrid’s youth ranks. He used to talk to me about Real Madrid, just as I did with my friends. He said: “Iker, would you mind stepping outside for one second?”

“Sure,” I replied. When I came out, he told me: “You’d better get in a taxi now and hurry to Barajas [airport] because Real Madrid just phoned your mum and she has called us. You need to hurry up because you have to go to Norway.”

[It felt] like winning the lottery. I remember that moment very well. I was 16 years old. I left school, went home, changed my clothes, got in a taxi to Barajas, and I met all the stars – everything you thought impossible when you were a kid.

I went from being in class with my mate Julio to sitting at the same table as Fernando Morientes, Clarence Seedorf, Fernando Sanz, Predrag Mijatović, Davor Šuker and Raúl González. It was something magical and I will always remember that.

On coming on as a substitute in the 2002 UEFA Champions League final …
I wasn’t prepared to come on. I had always played with short sleeves because I felt more comfortable and free,and I wasn’t prepared. So the moment comes when I’m about to come on [for the injured César Sánchez]. I have to get off the bench, I don’t have my short sleeves, I’m unsettled and nervous because I don’t like to come on like that – especially in a final – and so I had to cut my sleeves. Javier Miñano, the strength and conditioning coach at Real Madrid, helped while Vicente Del Bosque was giving me some instructions on how to go about the match.

In the end we were lucky enough to win – my second Champions League title – against a Bayer Leverkusen side that had improved. People say that Bayer Leverkusen doesn’t seem like a great team but we’re talking about a team with Michael Ballack and Yildiray Baştürk, very good players at that time. They had eliminated Manchester United, Juventus, etc. I look back on it with a lot of happiness, and I was only 20 at the time.

It all happened very quickly, but in the end it was all very strange. I think it was the first time a keeper had to be substituted in a Champions League final.

On the Real Madrid-Barcelona rivalry …
You mature as a player with all the Clásicos there have been in Spain. It’s the most intense rivalry on earth. Of course there are derbies the world over but everything about Madrid-Barça is at the highest possible level because in the last few years the best players in the world have been at those two clubs.

We haven’t yet been able to see a Madrid-Barcelona Champions League final – I don’t think we’re ready for that yet. We’ve experienced something similar in other competitions such as the Copa Libertadores, but a Champions League final between Real Madrid and Barcelona could be very tough.

We’ve already seen Real Madrid v Atlético Madrid. I can imagine that [a Clásico as a] possible final, and it would be tough, but surely we’ll see it one day.