Iker Casillas, a life in three stops

In his 1,048 official matches with Real Madrid (725), the Spanish team (167) and Porto (156), Iker Casillas has collected a few thousand stops and three of them have marked his professional career. Sure he made a good handful of aesthetically better interventions that also had a direct influence on the result, but that trilogy is part of his legend. Two were with Real Madrid and one with the national team. Glasgow 2002, Seville 2009 and Johannesburg 2010 were his years and his settings.

The interested party includes these three interventions among his top-ten , but his privileged memory allows him to have others recorded in his retina that he always has in mind at the time of the count. “The two penalties from the shootout against Italy at Euro 2008; one to Iniesta in the final of the Copa del Rey in 2011; Cardozo's penalty at the World Cup; those of Old Trafford at the beginning of the match against Manchester United with the two goals by Raúl and the heel of Redondo; a penalty that I stopped with the U-16 team in the final of a European and another in the U-20 World Cup… ”, he recalls in the book The humility of the champion.

In addition to Iker's own analysis of each of those three plays, four qualified goalkeepers, Santi Cañizares (teammates at Real Madrid for a day - trip to Trondheim - and in the national team), Paco Buyo (last great white goalkeeper before the arrival of Iker); José Manuel Ochotorena (national team goalkeeping coach since 2003) and Andrés Palop (teammate in Euro 2008), crumble for EL PAÍS from the goalkeeper's prism the technical and emotional secrets of those three already legendary interventions.

Hampden Park (Glasgow). 5-15-2002. Champions final. Real Madrid-Bayer Leverkusen (2-1) . Iker, who enters for the injured César in the 67th minute, pulls from memory. “When I go in, I do two or three in a row. The one that is most remembered is the one I do with the right foot. I ran to cover the far post and the shot caught me off foot. I instinctively pulled my leg out. "

Cañizares. “Those in Glasgow, more than anthological stops, were very important stops. It was the end of the game and the final of the Champions League. What I value the most is that the goalkeeper comes off the bench and goes on stage without the ideal preparation. Neither on a psychological or physical level because he has not made a goal. There, something that happened to me in Seville against Denmark plays in favor of Iker when Zubi was sent off in the last qualifying game for the World Cup in the United States. I left thinking that I would have to do what I could, but that brown was not mine. I was the substitute, like Casillas then. You don't have the same pressure as when you are the starter. You have to put your engine from zero to a thousand revolutions, which is how the others are. The value of Iker is that he does everything correctly, which is very difficult coming off the bench. It does not have as much merit as Robben's stop, but he was not responsible for the situation that had been generated. He did not have the requirement of the owner who has to remove the chestnuts from the fire from the first moment ”.

Buyo. “It's a good stop that has the repercussion it has because it was a final. In his career, Iker has made 100 stops better than that. In this action, in his stretch he spends a little bit of braking length and takes out the wonderful resource of the foot to avoid the goal. It is a play in which you think of using any surface of the body to save it. Goalkeepers use the resource of the feet a lot when shooting at very short distances, two or three meters. You have no other choice and you stick your feet out. A goalkeeper has to train everything that is trainable and more ”.

Ochotorena . “In this action the ball is beaten. It has a great response capacity to regain position. It's a reflex stop. And of decision. I throw myself and I throw myself. I do this and it works out for me. Iker is very cold-minded. You always think you are responsive. He has an innate ability to trust himself in the most impossible actions. How do you get them out? Nobody knows, but he did know that he could get it out. "

Palop. “Capacity for intuition. It is a corner kick, the ball crosses the small area towards the furthest post. What he wants there is to cover the club as soon as possible where the ball is going. What he does not want is to go beyond the reference of the suit so as not to leave the goal too free and always try to stay between the three suits. What he doesn't want is that by going further he can free up the center, which is finally where the ball goes. He wins, but his feet are left behind and he is the ones with which he takes it out. It is a desperate action, but in which the goalkeepers know what we have to do and what not. Goalkeepers are asked to stop and in those extreme situations you have to guess what can happen, the feet are very important. It is a matter of covering as much as possible and then clearing it as possible ”.

Miracle against Perotti. Sánchez Pizjuán. 4-10-2009. Sevilla-Real Madrid (2-1). Casillas recalls: “It was a Negredo cross to the far post, I was in the first and Perotti arrived alone. I did not think. I threw myself convinced that I could get there. It was a matter of faith, it went from one suit to another. I convinced myself that I was coming and I came ”.

Cañizares. “Speed ​​is involved because it is a very fast action and intuition is involved because you don't have time to wait for the ball, you have to try to get there, but above all what is involved is the mind. Convince yourself that you can get there. That is the key. Iker says 'I'm going to want to get there' and that's what leads him to stop it. He never gives the set for lost ”.

Buyo . “There Iker has a bit of everything. Intuition, an extraordinary speed of reaction, key in great goalkeepers, and a feline agility to reach that ball. It was a sure goal. Decision making is very important for a goalkeeper. Primordial. From making a good decision to a bad one, the difference is the goal and Iker in that play mentally thought it was coming. No two goalkeepers are the same, but I've always thought that the trait that Iker had comparable to me was intuition ”.

Ochotorena. “It is an action related to the speed of movement and the ability to react. It was a clear goal and he believes he can stop it. His leg speed and his conviction come into play. Other goalkeepers do not react to the worst because they think they will not arrive. He does. Shrinks towards the ball, attacks it in an extreme situation. He doesn't expect it ”.

Palop. “I was in the front goal and I experienced it live. It's a desperate situation for a goalkeeper. For me it is the most complicated of the three because of how it is positioned, it has to turn around, sprint, put power to fly and take that ball with that force and at the other stick. He is in the short awaiting the shot or the death pass. Perotti may not hit the ball quite well on his shot, but getting to that ball means he has incredible power and reaction capacity. "

Robben's heads up, Johannesburg (SoccerCity). 11-7-2010. World Cup Final. Spain-Holland (1-0). Iker's reflection: “It gave me time to think because Robben comes from far away. I told myself that I had to put up with the maximum because he had room to dribble at speed. I could do both: shoot or dribble, that's why I stayed on my feet until he shot and got my right foot out. "

Cañizares. “The most important thing is to put yourself in their situation. Final of the World Cup, tie on the scoreboard and ending the match. I have not lived that. Iker, yes. That scenario should mark everything and its revolutions had to be at maximum power. What he tries is to cover as much goal as possible and above all not to turn his body. Try that if the ball touches any part of your body it is not rejected backwards. He wants to stay in front of the play. If he had turned that ball that hits him on the foot he would have gone backwards. You don't have time to pull Robben and then react. For Robben it was also the game of his life. The advantage was his. Iker makes a bet. In a heads up the goalkeeper always has less than a 50 percent advantage. A frontal heads up is even more difficult. He put his 30 or 40 percent on the grass, made the right gesture and from there he transferred the pressure to the attacker ”.

Buyo . “Robben goes head-on against him and Iker what he's trying to do is make himself very big. He covers the left side with his body and hands, intuiting that the shot may go that way, but when Robben changes him and shoots to his right he takes out the miraculous foot. It is an act of reflexes. Reflections in people and goalkeepers are not only experienced with your hands. When an object falls to the ground, we all put our feet to lower the blow, because that is what a goalkeeper does. That is trained ”.

Ochotorena . “All the advantage is Robben. Iker decides to close the angle, he leans to his left and has the ability to endure until the end and deceive the opponent: I offer you that side but not one hundred percent, I save myself a resource. That resource is your right foot, the one that ends up saving the action. Invite Robben to shoot there. Take the risk. It was a very South American goalkeeper save. It makes the striker doubt, who falls into the trap ”.

Palop . “The goal angle for Robben was very wide. The goalkeeper has to guess if he is going to dribble or kick you. In Iker's action I see a high percentage of intuition. He beats to the side, but leaves open a possibility to react if the ball does not go where he thinks. Makes a bet. When the goalkeepers choose a side, we are in an extreme situation. If you wait, the shot passes you and you can't do anything. Iker sees the player's profile and knows Robben's characteristics, so he offers him his left side to take out his hand and at the same time thinks that if he changes it for that, his legs will be able to react to the other suit. Find the two solutions. It does not launch fast ”.