Real Madrid captain Iker Casillas vowed on Sunday to prove Jose Mourinho was wrong to drop him from the Real Madrid starting line-up for the first time in 10 years.

World Cup winner Casillas was benched for Saturday's 2-3 defeat at Malaga with 25-year-old understudy Antonio Adan stepping into the breach.

"I'm not used to being a backup, but above all I am a team player. The thing to do is to keep training and try to regain my place," Casillas told La Sexta television.

"Mourinho didn't say anything during the week, but we abide by the decision of the coach. I am feeling good, but the one who decides is the coach and I have to keep training to regain his confidence. We have a healthy competition for all the places."

Mourinho, whose champion is 16 points behind leader Barcelona, continued to insist on Sunday that he had been right to drop Casillas.

"I have a clear conscience. I try to have the best team for each match," the coach said on arriving in Lisbon where he will spend the Christmas vacation.

But the Spanish media took aim at him.

"'Mou' is making a laughing stock of himself," opined Madrid sports daily Marca while displaying on its front page a photo of Casillas with his head bowed during the match. "Another act of defiance by the coach, this time against the saint of saints of the club."

Another sports daily As, which like Marca slated Casillas's replacement Antonio Adan for Malaga's third goal, was even less forgiving.

"Mourinho has become an unsupportable problem," it blasted.

Another of the club's discontented stars, Sergio Ramos, who like Casillas part of the Spain side that has collected two European Championships and the World Cup in the past four years, weighed in on Canal Plus Spain.

"We were all taken aback by the dropping of Casillas, I mean he is the captain," said the defender, who himself fell foul of Mourinho earlier in the season and was dropped and trained on his own. It is him who plays and he will continue to play because he is a truly great goalkeeper."