The zoetic connection of Iker Casillas and Real Madrid was made in September 1999 at the old Estadio San Mames.
With first-choice goalkeeper Bodo Illgner injured, Los Blancos manager John Toshack was forced to hand a first senior start to an untested 18-year-old Casillas who had joined the club at the age of nine.
It took Athletic Bilbao midfielder Julen Guerrero just 15 minutes to open the scoring, and to establish a bit of trivia that, nearly 16 years later, seems almost of another time: “Who was the first player to score on Casillas in La Liga?”
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Steve McManaman restored level terms shortly thereafter, and a Geremi own-goal and Guti equaliser rounded out the scoring in the 2-2 draw.
Eight months later Casillas’ status as a Real Madrid legend was established when he became the youngest goalkeeper to back stop a team to Champions League glory (he posted a clean sheet in the 3-0 win over Valencia), and it was consolidated in the 2002 when, having lost his place to Cesar Sanchez, he came off the bench to relieve his injured teammate and make a series of important saves in the final against Bayer Leverkusen.
It was Madrid’s ninth European Cup, and they wouldn’t win another until 2014, when they beat city rivals Atletico to seal La Decima.
Between those triumphs Casillas—even more than earning a reputation as one of the best goalkeepers in world football—would become one of the few familiar figures associated with Los Merengues, a sort of favourite son who, after making his international debut in 2000, would go on to achieve similar celebrity with the Spanish national team.
He was an untouchable—a favourite of club presidents and the Madridistas alike, enjoying the rarefied air of Fernando Hierro and Raul and then rising into an even higher atmosphere in which only he could breathe.
One of the few survivors of Florentino Perez’ initial Galacticos experiment, he was a constant through the tumultuous tenure of Ramon Calderon as the likes Fernando Gago, Wesley Sneijder and Ruud van Nistelrooy came through the revolving door as Luis Figo, Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane exited. And by the time Perez returned to the presidency in 2009 he was more synonymous with Madrid than anyone else at the club.
As El Pais columnist Manuel Jabois wrote, Casillas was that rare ‘keeper with whom words such as “inborn” and “magic” and even “holy” were used as descriptors. “Casillas evokes the extrasensory,” he explained.
Perhaps this is why his downfall has been, if not difficult to understand, then certainly hard to accept.
By December 2012 Casillas had been struggling to work those trademark reflexes from his body, to perform the otherworldly, and he was dropped by manager Jose Mourinho, who in January acquired Diego Lopez from Sevilla.
In hindsight Madrid might have made the inevitable parting rather less uncomfortable by initiating it sooner, but Casillas’ 13 Champions League starts en route to the 2014 victory over Atletico both bought him another season in the Spanish capital and prolonged the agony of the split.
In the end it was he, himself, who confirmed his exit—alone on the podium, addressing the supporters through the congregated media. With the playing squad on tour in Australia and Perez gossiping within earshot of reporters it had the look of an extremely awkward situation, and rightfully so, but it was also appropriate that Casillas, and no one else, did the talking.
It was heroic, in a sense. A final heroism for a club that came to expect it.
And now, unveiled as a Porto player, he can simply be a goalkeeper. He’s released from the umbilical connection that kept him, and Real Madrid, vital through each other for so long.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based writer. Follow him on Twitter