As a goalkeeper, he scored over 50 goals. He did not hesitate to get into conflict with opposing players. He publicly criticized journalists and politicians and defended the views of ordinary people. Temperamental, hairless, popular Bulldog, Paraguayan goalkeeper Jose Luis Chilavert, is a very colorful personality and revolutionary, the likes of which, according to the BBC, South America has not seen since Che Guevara.
Chilavert was born into a poor family in the town of Luke in the south of Paraguay. As he later said, he walked barefoot until the age of seven. In those years, he had only two duties - to milk the cows and to try to sell the milk, because his family needed the money. That is why his statement on the eve of the World Cup in France in 1998 is still famous today:
"Pressure? Well, this is just a football game. When you don't know how to feed your family, that's pressure."
He started his football career in Sportivo Lukenja in 1982. After two seasons, he went to Guarani, and then in 1984 he left Paraguay and moved to Argentina's San Lorenzo. He played 122 games for the Saints in three seasons. This was followed by a move to Zaragoza, Spain, which was led from the bench by Serbian expert Radomir Antić.
In the Pyrenees, he drove the fans crazy with his frequent runs from the penalty area and taking free kicks.
"I didn't care what others thought. I relied on my abilities", he said later, admitting that after training he stayed alone to practice freestyle.
After a three-year spell in Spain, he signed for the Argentinian Velez Sarsfield, where he grew into an icon of the club.
The Paraguayan's football revolution begins in Argentina - with him in goal, Velez wins four titles - three Clausuras (1993, 1996 and 1998) and the 1995 Apertura. With the Argentine team, he won the Copa Libertadores and the Intercontinental Cup in 1994, the Supercopa Sudamericana in 1996 and the Recopa Sudamericana in 1997.
He crowned successful club seasons with accolades on an individual level, so in 1995, 1997 and 1998 he was named the best goalkeeper in the world, and in 1996 he was chosen as the best South American player and the best player in the Argentine league.
In Velez jersey, he scored 36 goals in 270 games and was remembered as the first goalkeeper to score a hat-trick in one game. It was in the match against Ferro Karil in 1999, when he scored all the goals from the penalty spot.
He scored many effective goals, so his goal against River Plate, when he checked Germano Burgos from his half, is still retold today.
He also met Burgos in 1996 in the qualifiers for the World Cup in France, when he scored a point from a free kick for Paraguay in Buenos Aires.
Chilavert gained fame playing for the national team. With him in goal, Paraguay qualified for the World Cup in France in 1998, for the first time since 1986.
"No one had heard of us when we came to France. They couldn't find Paraguay on the map. And now the whole world knows about us", said Čilavert excitedly in 1998.
Paraguay played in France in a group with Bulgaria, Spain and Nigeria. In the match against Bulgaria, Čilavert became the first goalkeeper to shoot a free kick at the World Cup.
In the group stage, he conceded only one goal, against Nigeria. This was followed by a match with the French in the round of 114. Chilavert resisted in goal until the XNUMXth minute when Laurent Blanc scored the golden goal to knock Prague out of the championship.
"We have a team that could have reached the final. I would like it if we could play against the French again, because I am convinced that they would not beat us this happily", said Cilavert, who was included in the ideal lineup of the championship along with Fabien Barthez.
A year after the World Cup in France, Paraguay hosted the South American Championship. But there was no Chilavert in the home team. He boycotted the championship, because he felt that the government invested too much money in the organization of the competition, instead of redirecting it to the education system, which was in a bad state at the time.
The next major competition in which Paraguay played with Chilavert was the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan. But the road to the World Cup could not be without controversy. After the qualifying match with Brazil, Chilavert spat at Roberto Carlos. FIFA punished him with a four-match ban (later reduced to three), so the temperamental Paraguayan missed the first match of the championship against South Africa.
"When the game ended he said to me "Indian, we won 2:0 and you were terrible". Everyone knows that Robert Carlos is a provocateur", defended Cilavert, who was not the first conflict in his career, because in 1997 he also hit the Colombian Faustino Asprilia, after both of them received a red card.
Before leaving for the World Cup in 2002, Čilavert also got into a clinch with journalists. The press then criticized the head coach of Paraguay, the Italian Cesare Maldini, whose defense the goalkeeper came to.
"90 percent of journalists in Paraguay are incompetent," defended Maldini Chilavert.
At the championship, Paraguay barely made it past a group that included Spain, Slovenia and South Africa. Once again, the round of 88 was the end of the range, this time Germany was better, who celebrated with Oliver Neuville's goal in the XNUMXth minute of the match.
Meanwhile, after 10 years, he left Velez and signed for Strasbourg, with whom he won the cup, but was relegated from the league. In the end, he did not end up on the best of terms with the French, because in 2005 he received a suspended sentence of six months in prison, as he falsified documents about his physical condition when he asked for compensation for the termination of the contract.
After France, he goes to Peñarol, Uruguay, where he takes another title.
In the end, there was a return to another house. Although he announced the end of his career, he had one wish – to do so as a Velez player. His wish was fulfilled, so he spent the 2003/2004 season in Argentina without playing a game.
After the end of his career, he announced that he would run for president of the country, and in 2013 he supported Horacio Cartes in the presidential campaign, who later became the president of Paraguay.
On March 2015, XNUMX, the Paraguayan Parliament awarded him an order of the highest order for his contribution to sports and the promotion of the country. And the experienced goalkeeper, now retired, knows what football lacks the most.
"Good goalkeepers are like dinosaurs. An endangered species", he believes, after the Brazilian Rogerio Seni, the best goalscorer among goalkeepers.
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