Casillas only one match away from record

When Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas leads La Roja in tomorrow’s Euro 2012 final against Italy in Kiev, he could set a new milestone. The Spanish captain is already the player with the most international wins to his name, but with a victory on Sunday could be the first player in history to reach the milestone of 100 victories with his national team. The 31-year-old Real Madrid custodian overtook the previous record holders, Egyptian Ahmed Hassan and France’s Lilian Thuram, at the end of May, when he came on in Spain’s 4-1 win against South Korea. That was his 95th victory with La Roja. Since then, he has added another victory in a friendly against China, as well as Euro victories against Ireland, Croatia and France. There was some confusion on Wednesday, after Spain secured a penalty shoot-out win against Portugal in the Euro semi-final, as to whether Casillas had, in fact, already achieved the milestone in the match in Donetsk. But a spokesman for the Dutch company Infostrada, a worldwide provider of comprehensive sports statistics and information services, told dpa on Friday that, just like world governing body FIFA, they do not count penalty shoot-out matches as defeats or wins. “The shoot-out against Portugal was the third shoot-out win that Casillas was involved in with Spain and none of them are reflected as victories,” he said. World Cup winner Casillas, who became the first goalkeeper to captain a Euro winning side in 2008, is now hoping that he can add a second Euro title and reach the milestone of becoming the first player to win 100 international matches.from gulf times.