World Cup winning captain, European Championship winning captain, three-times Champions League winner, four times La Liga winner; Iker Casillas is a living legend.
An institution at Real Madrid; he is already the club's most-capped goalkeeper of all time, and his powers show no sign of waning.
A product of the Real Madrid youth system, Casillas made his debut in the first team on November 27, 1997, against Rosenborg in the Champions League aged only 16 years old. In 2000, he became the youngest goalkeeper to play in a Champions League final when Real Madrid defeated Valencia 3-0 just four days after his 19th birthday.
He subsequently lost his place to Cesar Sanchez, but as befits a man who seems to write his own scripts, he burst back on to the scene in the final minutes of the 2002 Champions League final against Bayer Leverkusen, when Sanchez was injured. He made a string of superb saves to deny Leverkusen and help Los Blancos lift the trophy again. He has retained the number one jersey ever since.
A winner in 2001, 2002 and 2007, Casillas earned his fourth La Liga title in the 2007-08 season, conceding a miserly 32 goals from 38 games. His performances established him as one of the club's all-time greats alongside such legends as Raul and Alfredo di Stefano, and he was offered a lifelong contract until 2017.
At international level, Casillas also has an extraordinary pedigree. He is amongst the most capped players in Spanish football history and has already kept the most clean sheets.
Following his full debut against Sweden, aged 19, Casillas was an unused substitute at Euro 2000. He was part of the squad for the 2002 World Cup, initially as the understudy to Santiago Canizares. He started all of Spain's Euro 2004 matches and was first choice for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, captaining the team twice, but could not prevent Spain from losing 3-1 to a Zidane-inspired France in the Round of 16.
With the exclusion of former Real Madrid team-mate Raul from the squad for Euro 2008, Casillas was given the captain's armband. He started the first two Euro 2008 Group D games against Russia and Sweden before being rested in place of second-choice goalkeeper Pepe Reina for Spain's group stage elimination of Greece.
He saved two penalties from Antonio Di Natale and Daniele De Rossi as Spain eliminated Italy in the quarter-finals with a 4–2 shootout win following a goalless draw. Casillas kept clean sheets for the quarter-final, semi-final, and final matches as Spain completed a 1–0 win over Germany in the final on 29 June. Casillas became the first goalkeeper to lift the trophy as captain.
He has now gone one better by lifting the World Cup for Spain for the very first time. The Spaniards beat Holland 1-0, in a hard-fought final in Johannesburg, South Africa. They had begun the tournament poorly, losing to Switzerland, but improved steadily, beating a previously rampant German side in the semi-finals to earn their chance to make history.
Casillas is now the only goalkeeper to captain his country to successive European Championship and World Cup victories.