When is a transfer not a transfer? When the club’s CEO is Florentino Perez, who runs Real Madrid.

The list of club legends leaving with a bad taste in their mouth has become legendary in itself. Fernando Hierro, Raul, Guti, and now Iker Casillas. Sergio Ramos maybe next. Some of it is due to players becoming a law unto themselves and instigating player revolts against coaches and the hierarchy but a lot of it is also due to a dog eat dog mentality that infects the Merengues. In Casillas’s case, he served 25 years winning everything that was worth winning, including La Liga five times and 3 UEFA Champions Cup including the decima. He also achieved the pinnacle of achievement as world’s best goalkeeper, not just once, but five years in a row. In all, he made 727 appearances for Real Madrid, a through and through Merengue thoroughbred having risen from the ranks of Madrid’s second and third tier.

The break up began when Perez became president in 2010 of Real Madrid. About the same time, Casillas was coming off the highs of Spain’s maiden World Cup win in which he had won the Golden Glove and two years before, captaining Spain to their first ever Euro title. Perez was never a big fan of Casillas as he wasn’t one of his signings and considered him “short” as revealed by the goalie’s parents in an interview. Sid Lowe mentions the relationship fractured further when Madrid refused compensation to Casillas after falling out with his then agent.

Still, he was the face of the Merengues and the world’s best goalkeeper. All that would change with the arrival of Jose Mourinho, who looked on his Real Madrid hiring as an outlet to unleash his virulent Barcelona antipathy simmering through the years after his undignified exit from the Catalunyan club as Louis Van Gaal’s assistant. The former translator had never embraced Barcelona total football, openly contemptuous of Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola.

The clasicos began to feel like war and to the chagrin of RM fans, humiliating defeats. But the real damage was also being done away from the pitch, as Mourinho’s feverish UEFA rants, victimization complex, and on pitch instigation was eroding a proud Real Madrid, now barely recognizable to fans. The face(s) of Madrid were Pepe and Marcelo, vicious head cases. More ominously, the Real Madrid PR machine was slowly being alienated, now looking for any anti Mourinho hook. For the courtly, non-confrontational Casillas, these constant conflagrations were eroding his off pitch friendship with Xavi, an essential ingredient in Spain’s national success.

It was the infamous 2011 Spanish Supercopa second leg that broke the veritable camel’s back as Leo Messi sensationally scored a late goal for Barcelona to take a 3-2 lead into extra time. That is when Marcelo decided to go agricultural on Cesc Fabregas. Sparking off that now historical melee that Mourinho adorned by poking the eye of the late Tito Vilanova. This sort of destructive vitiation could destroy the delicate comity between these two club giants and dog Spain to familiar chronic underachievement in the international arena.

Bill Haisley in a well written, extensively documented article (read it for its fascinating behind the scenes) says this left Casillas worried for the sake of national unity and its detrimental effect on defending their Euro title in the 2012 championships. He decided to make peace by calling Xavi and apologizing for what had transpired. The call had the effect of calming down the passions in both camps and Spain went on to defend their title quite convincingly. Anyone with a nationalistic bone agreed Casillas had done the right thing and he was praised for keeping the peace. However, Mourinho was enraged, Casillas in his eyes was a Judas apologizing to the club he hated. The problem with Mourinho is everything is defined in Manichean terms of the politics of personal destruction which serves the highest purpose. There appears to be no other. That season, Real Madrid despite the Supercopa failure went onto win the Liga as Cristiano Ronaldo put together a scoring clinic and Casillas won best goalie again. But Mourinho never forgave him and the next few months were a nerve wracking, tension filled time with the coach trying to belittle his captain.

That was when the first media leaks of dressing room altercations began with Ramos and Casillas pointedly questioning Mourinho’s coaching credentials. It does not make for pretty reading. Mourinho comes across as a tone deaf interloper full of innuendo and sarcasm of Spaniards. Ramos and Casillas, a few levels removed from insurrectionists characterized by Casillas’s famous retort, “Eh, mister, round here you say things to our face, eh!”

Incensed at having a mole in the dressing room, Mourinho suspected it was Casillas, and cast himself in a familiar role, that of victim. A victim of a know it all, arrogant group of players who thought they needed no coaching and a local press that was gunning for him. He was tired and contemplating resignation. Reported by a Mourinho mouthpiece. This immediately got the attention of Perez as desired by Mourinho and the CEO put a gag order on the press and forbade any leaks.

By the end of the season, Mourinho had made up his mind Casillas needed to be sold. The only problem was there were hardly any world class replacements. The obvious choice, David De Gea had already left for Man Utd. Whether this was what Perez also felt is unclear but Casillas’s performance were to come under increasing scrutiny. With Pep Guardiola leaving abruptly, it was Real’s Liga to lose. However, it all began to quickly unravel as Barca took a 16 point lead while Real foundered. Casillas began to make mistakes, small but significant ones, and Mourinho was quick to point them out.

The breaking point came when Barca drew with Espanyol, 2-2 capping off a frustrating winter stretch. Mourinho decided to bench Casillas and shocked the world by installing Antonio Adan, a virtual novice. It proved disastrous. Adan was red carded in a match against Real Sociedad and Casillas was forced back. Not for too long as he suffered a hand injury in late January and Mourinho cast his eye out on a replacement and found one in itinerant Diego Lopez languishing at Sevilla. What happened with Lopez was nothing short of a miracle as Real reeled of a 16 match undefeated streak with the new goalie providing an assured touch and organizational strength at the back. Real’s ministrations did not win them the league however and they were outclassed by Borussia Dortmund in the CL semi-finals. Mourinho soon after departed for Chelsea, in acrimony but made it clear while his negotiations were on with the London club, that his exit was precipitated by Casillas and the Madrid press. He specifically mentioned he dropped the ball not bringing Diego Lopez after the first season.

New coach, Carlo Ancelotti was the antithesis of Mourinho, but he reposed faith in Lopez for the league games while Casillas was called in for cup competitions. This two tiered system worked fine and Casillas was back to national duty again. Real Madrid won the coveted decima although Casillas did not cover himself in glory. However, back in reality land, fans took Casillas presence in the cup competitions as a demotion, indicative of his waning powers. Worse, the suspicion he was the mole undermining Mourinho never went away.

He was TopoR (a portmanteau of Topo “a mole” and Portero “goalkeeper”) increasingly whispered in the Bernabeu. Which brings us to the crux of the matter. Although Mourinho purely as an abstraction deserves his detractors, he has few peers when it comes to a visceral bring a knife to the fight POV. Which is why he excites his fans. He’s not just a coach, he’s a political animal and his Madrid legacy was to damage Casillas irreparably. For Casillas, the 2014 World Cup was a disaster, he was a fish out of water against Netherlands in that humiliating defeat. Robin Van Persie, not the quickest, never the quickest, made to look like Usain Bolt against the Spanish goalie. The 2014-15 season also saw Casillas being whistled by an increasing number of detractors and an irate Ronaldo laying the blame on the goalie for the misery heaped by Atletico in their derby.

Casillas cut a lonely and teary eyed figure in his 10 minute press conference when he announced he was leaving for Porto. There was no ceremony, no official acknowledgment of his many contributions in a quarter century service to the club. Even the follow up, with Perez and a few thousand fans at the Bernabeu, was a self conscious exercise in damage control than effusive praise. He’s become a stat, a vital one, but at the same time an entirely expendable one, in the soul gobbling instant gratification machine that is Real Madrid. Porto is his next stop but it might as well be a banishment. Contrast this with the delirious send off Xavi received at the Camp Nou as he departs for Al Sadd. Even the Barca midfielder was moved to remonstrate at his friends paltry treatment. Maybe in later years, Casillas might be remembered more fondly, his legacy less tainted. For now he can draw comfort from an increasing band of legends and coaches dumped by the giant vampire squid aka Real Madrid.