Iker Casillas has publicly backed José Mourinho. In the middle of a title race. In Spanish. From the man Mourinho dropped from the Real Madrid goal in 2013.
Minutes after Mbappe’s 87th-minute strike at the Spotify Camp Nou on Sunday, Casillas posted on X.
“Hay @LaLiga! 🔝 Muy bien el @realmadrid. Planteamiento muy bueno de Mourinho.”
Translated: there is still a league to be won, Real Madrid were very good, and Mourinho’s plan was excellent. Three short lines on his X account, reported by COPE’s Tiempo de Juego, from a man who went years without saying a kind word about Mourinho in public.
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The 2013 fallout
The reason that one post is a story at all sits in the January 2013 Real Madrid dressing room. Mourinho brought in Diego López from Sevilla mid-season and installed him as first-choice goalkeeper, benching Casillas for the first time since his teenage debut.
Mourinho had never forgiven his captain for a 2011 peace pact with Barcelona’s Xavi, aimed at easing hostilities for the sake of the Spain squad. In Mourinho’s “us against the world” dressing room, the gesture read as a betrayal.
Casillas never recovered the gloves at Madrid. He left for Porto in 2015. Years later, he described the three seasons under Mourinho as a relationship that curdled over time, telling his own podcast it was like a couple that stops being in love.
What Mourinho did at Camp Nou
The tactical twist Casillas was applauding was Mourinho playing Bernardo Silva as a central midfielder alongside Aurélien Tchouaméni and Jude Bellingham, freeing Bellingham higher up to combine with Mbappe. Real Madrid were without the suspended Vinícius Júnior and the ill Thibaut Courtois.
Mbappe put Real Madrid ahead on 41 minutes when Gerard Martín’s attempted clearance ricocheted in off him. Raphinha levelled for Barcelona just after the hour, before substitute Eduardo Camavinga raced down the right and cut back for Mbappe to tap in the winner three minutes from time, per The Analyst’s live stats.
Hansi Flick’s Barcelona had not lost a league game until Sunday. They remain top, but their nine-match league winning run is over and the gap to Mourinho’s Real Madrid is now three points.
‘San Iker’ siding with the man who dropped him
The reconciliation has not been formal. Casillas’s post is not an interview, and he has given no explanation for why he chose this moment to say it out loud.
Mourinho, speaking to reporters afterwards, called it “a great victory for the boys against a great opponent” and added that “being three points behind is different, and the way we won is also important.”
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