Mourinho tells AS: "Iker and me have since become good friends"

The Portuguese coach said of Casillas: "He's one of the greatest goalkeepers in history, we had some difficult moments because of a decision I made".

José Mourinho, someone who played a pivotal role in Iker Casillas' final days at Real Madrid, told AS of his admiration for the goalkeeper on hearing of his retirement. And despite the problems between both men during their time together in Madrid, Mourinho says he is happy to say that now they enjoy a good friendship. "His intelligence and maturity meant that we always have respected each other and years later, even been able to become good friends," Mourinho told AS.

For the Spurs manager, Iker is "a great goalkeeper and a great man". He also recalled all of the successes that they enjoyed together: "Iker is one of the greatest goalkeepers in Real Madrid's history, in Spain's history and world football's history. With him, we won the league which broke all records and we also had some difficult moments because of a decision which I took - a professional decision, not a personal one, to play someone else in goal".

Casillas and Mourinho's friendship develops

Over the past few years, both Mou and Casillas have been able to put their differences behind them. Both have been able to say in public that their relationship has changed for the better. Casillas cited Mourinho's influence in Tottenham's spectacular comeback in their Champions League tie against Olympiacos in November.

Earlier in 2019, when Iker suffered a heart attack, a worried Mourinho confessed that the first thing he did was get in touch with Porto to find out if the keeper was ok and if he could help. He also spoke about their professional relationship in May last year: "Everybody knows, that, at a certain moment when I decided to take him out of the team, there was a certain confrontation - I won't say it was a clash of egos but a confrontation between Real Madrid's captain and Real Madrid's manager. It wasn't easy for me to take that decision - and it wasn't easy for him to accept it. But we have a positive relationship - it's not like a lot of people think," he explained. Whenever they have been in the same place at the same time, they have always posed for photographs together, showing that there's no bad blood, or hard feelings about what happened between them in the past.