Perez Adds Insult to Injury in Casillas' Farewell

1 is the Loneliest Number

You know that moment when you’ve been a daft prat and your mates have pointed it out. So you try to atone for your social faux pas and most definitely make it worse. That is Florentino Pérez.

After realising that maybe, just maybe he shouldn’t have let Iker Casillas sob his way through a farewell speech all on his own - he forced the goalkeeper to attend a second ‘ceremony’ today in a bid to save face.

It didn’t work.

Although they made the effort of building him a platform laden with the trophies he’d won over his 17-year career at the club, a mere 2000 fans were there to see him off - sort of.

Rather than support for a fantastic goalkeeper, captain and servant to the club chants rung out through the ground of “Florentino, resign!” and “Sergio Ramos is not for sale”. Not exactly the farewell that someone of Casillas’ stature deserved. And certainly not one that would come close to repairing the damage of leaving him on his own on Sunday.

The “ceremony” as it were became a platform for Pérez to waffle on and admitted that he called Casillas in at the last minute “so that people don’t think that there is anything strange”. It didn’t work Florentino, it didn’t work.

Casillas sat in the front row listening to claims of him being “irreplaceable” - while knowing that he’s only leaving because he is, in theory, about to be replaced by De Gea. And Pérez’ claims that he’d always defended him. A shambles of a send-off anyway you look at it.

Why Iker Casillas agreed to show up and help his former employer attempt to save face is beyond me. If it’s simply out of a love for the club and debt of gratitude to the fans, it makes the whole scenario even more uncomfortable.