Iker Casillas has reaffirmed he wants to end his career at Real Madrid and that he is focused on doing well and cementing his place in the starting-eleven.
The 32-year-old started for Spain in last weeks defeat to South Africa, and the veteran shot-stopper wants to continue to see regular first-team action.
“I am not thinking about the World Cup right now. I am thinking about doing things right with my club now and training more and working hard to be available for the coach when he needs me,” he told Real Madrid’s website.
“We have done what we needed to do with Spain, we qualified for the World Cup and now I am working to keep doing well at Real Madrid, and if you do well the coach will see that and you’ll get named in the list of 23.”
Casillas has been competing with Diego Lopez for the starting-spot at Real Madrid since former coach Jose Mourinho benched the club-captain last season.
“I am fighting to be first choice. You can’t give up, you have to keeping fighting. Make more sacrifices to get to play in every match. It is the coach’s decision and what I have to do is train and fight for that position, the same as my teammates do”.
“I don’t think that I gave an ultimatum. Every time I talk it is taken out of context. I’m delighted to be here. I want to stay here and finish my career here. If I do not play then I will say that I am sad because I am not playing. What I want is to help the team win as many titles as possible and be available for the coach. ”
Los Blancos will mark their return to La Liga action this weekend with an away trip to Almeria.
“There are four matches that I will be playing in before the end of the year and I’m delighted. The situation eleven years ago is not the same as now; I’m a more veteran player now. Every situation helps you in some way. Eleven years ago it helped me to mature and I am learning from this situation”.
Follow Louis Gibberd-Thomas on Twitter: @mercutio156
