IKER CASILLAS has revealed his relationship with Jose Mourinho soured at Real Madrid after a harmless conversation with Barcelona duo Xavi and Carlos Puyol.
Casillas explained he reached out to the Barca pair after poor relations between the two clubs was starting to have an impact on the Spain squad.
The goalkeeper tried to smooth things over but when Mourinho found out it started a whirlwind of problems, resulting in him being dropped from the first team.
“It didn’t sit well with him [Mourinho] that I spoke with someone from Barcelona to ease the tension in the national team,” he told Spanish broadcaster RTVE.
“I spoke with Xavi and Puyi [Carles Puyol] but the words that we used were not ‘listen, forgive me’ – that’s what a journalist linked with Mourinho said.
“What I said to Xavi was ‘look, if we keep going like this, we’re going to burden Spanish football with the image we give with two teams like Madrid and Barcelona’.
“I was the captain of Real Madrid but also of Spain. Everyone can believe what they want. I have a club I owe but I also have a national team.”
However, despite Casillas’ responsibilities at club and international level, Mourinho reacted badly to his peace-making attempts.
And the Real legend has admitted he was disappointed by the manager’s suggestion that he ‘preferred’ Diego Lopez and felt he couldn’t say anything to the boss.
The year started as normal in January and Mourinho thought there was a team-mate who was better than me, in Antonio Adan, who is phenomenal and a great kid, and he puts him in,” he added.
“I can’t say anything to him, because he’s the coach, he puts in who he wants. Then there are opinions… Then came my injury in January.
“After that, all I hear about me is crap, crap and more crap. The only thing I wanted was for my hand to recover, to get back to training with the group and compete, but my place had already been occupied by another person.
“The boss thought it right that he should play and I couldn’t say anything. But then there were the gestures in the press conferences [when Mourinho said that he liked Diego Lopez more] and the things he did.”
What followed was a ‘war’ between those loyal to Mourinho and those loyal to Casillas and the veteran goalkeeper has revealed he avoided the boss in his final year at the club, admitting things had turned ‘ugly’.
“There was a war between Mourinhoistas and Casillistas when I still hadn’t spoken,” he added.
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