Sara Carbonero and Iker Casillas separate after 11 years of relationship.
This has been confirmed by both this Friday on their Instagram accounts.
"Today our love as a couple takes different but not distant paths since we will continue together in the wonderful task of continuing to be dedicated parents as we have done so far," they have written.
The couple, who married in 2016, have two children: Martín and Lucas, aged seven and four.
"It is a very thoughtful decision and one that we made by mutual agreement," both explained in a letter accompanied by a photograph of the couple in black and white.
"Our priority is, from love and commitment, to share the well-being and education of our children and protect them so that they grow up in a stable and healthy environment," both wrote, who also ask that their privacy be respected "at this time of change".
Rumors about her breakup had been growing non-stop in recent weeks and were interspersed with various public displays of support, such as when on February 12 Sara Carbonero left the hospital center where she was admitted for a new problem with Iker Casillas of health.
This joint communiqué definitively confirms the end of their relationship and the end of a love story that all of Spain witnessed.
For the memory remains the kiss that the then goalkeeper of the Spanish team gave the Mediaset journalist after the triumph in the World Cup in South Africa.
From that moment on, their relationship made rivers of ink flow around the world.
They both embodied a perfect couple: young, handsome and successful.
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A post shared by Sara Carbonero (@saracarbonero)
After the end of Casillas' sports career in Madrid, the couple settled in Porto, which allowed them to live with more privacy.
The journalist and the former footballer returned to Madrid last summer after five years living in Porto, a team for which Casillas signed in 2015. The last one was especially hard for the couple who suffered significant health problems.
Iker Casilllas has never liked to speak in public about his personal life.
The same happens to Sara Carbonero.
Although years ago their relationship reached half the world for that famous kiss in South Africa, the couple has conducted their affairs in private.
An example: your wedding took place in a notary's office and with the only presence of the necessary witnesses.
It has been since May 2018 when the goalkeeper and the journalist have made the odd concession to their privacy.
It was when he suffered a heart attack during training with Porto and days later she was operated on for a malignant tumor in an ovary.
In those turbulent times both shared their feelings on their social networks where they accumulate many followers.
Now they have done it again to tell that they will go their separate ways.
Sources close to the couple assure that the cause of the separation has been a deterioration of the coexistence.
Together they have gone through very difficult times and that has left its mark on them.
For a long time they have tried to make things better but it has not been possible.
Iker Casillas is having a hard time finding a new rhythm of life after leaving active football and Sara Carbonero has gone through an illness and a very harsh treatment in which she did not always feel supported.
In a moment of relaxation, Casillas confessed a few months ago to a paparazzi, to whom he told that perhaps he had not been as long as he should with his wife.
A statement that was interpreted as the symptom of a crisis but in reality, according to sources close to the couple, what he intended was to tell that the goalkeeper wondered if he had done everything he should for her.
It was the first public sign that something was happening.
Casillas and Carbonero have been seen little in public these months.
Both, due to their ailments, are a population at risk in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic.
The couple have been living after their return from Porto in the house that the couple owns in the luxurious Madrid urbanization of La Finca.
That property has given them the privacy they seek.
Casillas also owns other properties in Madrid, since the athlete has invested in real estate.
In one of them it will be installed.