Real Madrid legend Casemiro revealed details about a dressing room talk which roared the club on to … [+]
Real Madrid legend Casemiro revealed details about a dressing room talk which roared the club on to its impressive “threepeat” Champions League glory almost a decade ago, during an interview with AS.
The Brazilian left the club to join Manchester United in 2022. Before that, however, he enjoyed nine glorious years at the Bernabeu as Los Blancos’ defensive midfield linchpin while winning a long list of trophies alongside Luka Modric and Toni Kroos in the center of the park.
Casemiro of course wasn’t around for Carlo Ancelotti’s men last triumph in the UCL, which came in London at Borussia Dortmund’s expense last June.
When asked by AS if the “getting used to winning” he mentioned is the reason for Madrid already talking about lifting the big-eared trophy for the 16th time, Casemiro told an anecdote from the locker room which came after he had done so for the second himself in the iconic white shirt.
“I’m going to tell you something that I hadn’t explained in any interview until today. We were in the dressing room after the Champions League final in Milan against Atleti, which we won on penalties (in 2016).
“We were celebrating the 11th (UCL title) and Luka Modric approaches us and tells us without getting upset and with his peculiar Spanish: ‘Friends, we have to win two more Champions Leagues now’. We told him, ‘Come on Luka, we’ve won almost two in a row since Lisbon’ (in 2014).
“He replied: ‘No, no. With this great team we have, we have to take advantage of it and make history by winning at least two more in a row”. And then we won the 12th in Cardiff and the 13th in Kiev.
“Luka knew it. At Madrid you win the Champions League and the next day they tell you: “Let’s see next year”. You win just La Liga alone and well, it’s nothing special and they will tell you that the European Cup was missing. You win the Copa del Rey alone and they will tell you that the season was a disaster. That’s Madrid, the maximum demand,” Casemiro concluded.
In this edition of the Champions League, Madrid has to first get past Manchester City in the playoffs on Wednesday to reach the last 16.
It has a 3-2 advantage going into the second leg at the Bernabeu, however, after winning by that score in Casemiro’s current hometown last week.
