Sanchís hails Bodo Illgner, not Iker as the best keeper in history
Manolo Sanchís lifted 'La Séptima' in Amsterdam in 1998. He spoke about the half-time talk in the Real Madrid dressing room to La COPE's 'El Partidazo' programme.
A few days ago, Real Madrid produced a video compilation to celebrate their 33 leagues - one which astonishingly, didn't feature former captain Iker Casillas. There was another surprise in last night's El Partidazo programme on Cadena COPE which featured guests Fernando Morientes, Pedja Mijatovic and Manolo Sanchís - the former Real Madrid captain who lifted La Séptima when Madrid beat Juve in the 1998 final in Amsterdam.
Sanchís was describing the atmopshere in the Madrid dressing room during that final but completely forgot about Casillas when he cited Bodo Illgner, the German keeper who played that night as "the best goalkeeper in history".
“There was a great mood within the squad with Bodo [Illgner], Fernando Redondo, Fernando Hierro… it was amazing. It was half-time and if Juve hadn’t managed to score against us it was because we had the best goalkeeper in the history of the game, Bodo Illgner, and a little bit of luck too.
“We thought: ‘where is this game heading?’ We felt that Zidane had far too much freedom to dominate the game. Then, right at that moment, Christian Karembeu said, ‘I’ll take care of Zidane’. Great! So we told the boss that Christian would be man-marking Zidane and he said, ‘perfect go ahead’. From that moment, Juve started to dwindle and I thought we were the better team in the second half”.