Iker Casillas played with and against some of the greatest players of all time during Real Madrid’s clash with Barcelona – but the retired goalkeeper ignored both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi when it came to selecting his personal best .
Casillas is known as Real Madrid’s number one player, playing 725 games for Los Blancos between 1999 and 2015.
His tenure at the Santiago Bernabéu brought five La Liga titles, two Copa del Rey titles, four Supercopa de España wins and the Champions League trophy on three occasions.
He left Real in 2015 and moved to FC Porto, whom he represented and won the Portuguese top flight before hanging up his gloves in 2020.
Casillas is second in the all-time caps list for Spain with 167 appearances for his country between 2000 and 2016, with only former team-mate Sergio Ramos above him in the standings at club and international level.
Casillas was a member of Spain’s golden generation, which also included players such as Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Gerard Pique and David Villa, who won the European Championships in 2008 and 2012 and the World Cup in 2010.
As a Real Madrid legend, Casillas played against Barcelona every season in El Clásico, often viewed as the biggest club game in world football.
Iker Casillas. (Image: Getty)
And Casillas was recently asked Target Who do they believe has the best player among those two great teams in the knockout system?
Casillas played alongside Ronaldo and certainly rivaled Messi as he came through the Argentine ranks at Barcelona following the attacker’s move from Manchester United for a then world record £80million in 2009.
But when this was put to the goalkeeper, he did not choose any player as the best and instead chose another all-time great.
Casillas chose Raul over Samuel Eto’o, before Brazilian Ronaldo took center stage in his selection.
R9 was selected over Raul, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Michael Owen, Romario, David Beckham, Ronaldinho, Gareth Bale, Pedro, Guti, Rivaldo and Karim Benzema.
However, Casillas ultimately chose Zinedine Zidane over Ronaldo, declaring ‘I will not move.’
But then along came Diego Maradona and Casillas chose the late Argentina great over both Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo – who represented Barca between 1982 and 1984.
Maradona won La Liga and the Coppa del Rey, before spending the best years of his playing career at Italian team Napoli, where he won two Serie A titles and the Coppa Italia.
And his inspirational performances helped Argentina win the 1986 World Cup, including the infamous ‘Hand of God goal’.