With the 2022 World Cup in Qatar As we kick off in November, we take a look back at the history of Worlds to see the good, the bad and the incredible moments that remain in our memories to this day and will live on forever. In this case, we remember the great World Cup of 1998 and its peculiar protagonist: José Luis Chilavert.
As the clock struck 72 minutes at Montpellier’s sunny Stade Le Mosson, the score in Bulgaria and Paraguay was tied at zero. In a nondescript match in the group stage of the ’98 World Cup, the crowd, previously bored to death, was suddenly on guard. Paraguay had won a free kick about thirty meters from Zdravko Zdravkov’s goal. The Bulgarian number one saw his counterpart step forward to claim responsibility for the dead ball.
For José Luis Chilavert, this territory was familiar. However, he was about to become the first goalkeeper in history to take a direct free kick in the World Cup finals.
With an angled run and a quick shot from his legendary left leg, Chilavert sent the ball in a wide arc towards the top corner of the goal. His shot seemed perfect, destined to skim the bottom of the crossbar and bounce off the net before Zdravkov’s left hand went up to prevent it.
Chilavert’s sublime goal from distance was preceded by hundreds more during his career. The Bulldog scored more than 60 goals for club and country before he finally took off the gloves in 2004.
The ingredients of a nonconformist
José Luis Chilavert was not always the most unusual set piece specialist in football. Although early in his career he was allowed to dabble in set pieces with Paraguayan side Sportivo Luqueño, it wasn’t until his move to Europe with Spanish side Real Zaragoza that he began to find his fluency and hone his skills.
In the 122 games he played with the Argentine San Lorenzo before his transfer to Spain in 1988, Chilavert did not score a single goal. For this reason, the goalkeeper made a lot of effort in the training camp with Zaragoza. He stayed to practice more than 100 shots per session to improve his accuracy.
In 1989, Chilavert made his international debut with Paraguay. The goalkeeper managed to score his first goal in a World Cup qualifying match against Colombia. Although he had to wait a long time to score his penalty, as hordes of police and officials stormed the field after it was granted.
However, life at the club was not that exciting. In an interview about his stage in the League, Chilavert said that fans used to “hallucinate” when he dribbled with the ball and they “yelled” at him to go back to goal. However, Chilavert’s threat from set pieces did not go unnoticed. He was allowed to take a penalty against Real Sociedad in the 1989/90 season, which he masterfully converted.
Nevertheless, Chilavert lost attention during the subsequent celebrations and Real equalized as soon as the game resumed. The Zaragoza fans did not see with good eyes the eccentricities of their goalkeeper and shortly after he was sold to his homeland, where Vélez Sarsfield received him with open arms.
Chilavert’s free throws come to the fore worldwide
In Vélez Sarsfield, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Liniers, Chilavert found in Carlos Bianchi a coach willing to adopt the strangest elements of the goalkeeper’s game. There he flourished with the freedom granted him. And, although his set-piece specialty continued to write the biggest headlines in Argentina and beyond, Chilavert had a series of world-class goalkeeping skills. His spectacular ability to stop shots was up to anyone.
Chilavert developed his ability to deliver on big occasions. His first goal with Vélez earned him a draw against Estudiantes that secured the Clausura title for his club. The goalkeeper would win four national and five international titles during his decade at the Fortín. Among his 48 goals, many fundamental goals are listed.
In a match in 1966, Chilavert yelled: “Stand aside, I’m going to score!” This, before launching a free kick from his own half that he found the net against rival River Plate. For the 1997/98 season, Chilavert scored ten goals in 35 league games for Vélez. The same year he won one of his three IFFHS World’s Best Goalkeeper Awards (1995, 1997 and 1998). In 1999, he became the first known goalkeeper to score a hat-trick in professional soccer history. He scored three penalties against Ferro Carril Oeste.
Chilavert’s legendary status in South America seemed to increase with each performance. His reputation for showmanship would follow him onto the international stage.
Chilavert and Paraguay: intertwined destinies
Chilavert’s relationship with the Paraguayan national team was a bit of a love-hate relationship after his initial debut in 1989. Between that year and 1992, he only won seven more caps for his country. However, less than 12 months later he was the team’s first choice in goal, scoring his second goal for his country against Peru in August 1993.
When CONMEBOL’s qualifying campaign for the 1998 World Cup in France ended, Chilavert had played more than 20 times for Paraguay, doubling his goal tally along the way with a first free kick against Argentina (1996) and a penalty against the same rival a year later. Paraguay finished second in the group, behind Argentina, ahead of the Colombian and Chilean teams. He qualified for the tournament for the second time since the 1950s.
Under the direction of Brazilian coach Paulo César Carpegiani, Paraguay took an exciting team to the 1998 World Cup in France. Exciting, but inexperienced: with half of the 22 members with ten or fewer calls.
14 different players -including Chilavert- they combined to score 21 goals for Paraguay during their run to South American qualification. With Roberto Acuña, Miguel Ángel Benítez and César Ramírez as the only members from Europe in their ranks, there was a union in the Guarani camp that would serve them in France.
World Cup 1998: Chilavert makes history
At 32 years old and in his formidable fullness, José Luis Chilavert was the captain of Paraguay in the 1998 World Cup. He led his teammates at the Stade de la Mosson to take on Bulgaria in the first day of Group D on June 12.
Before the game, Chilavert was asked about the weight of expectation on his shoulders as captain, though he joked: “Pressure? This is just a football game. When you don’t know how to feed your kids, that’s pressure,” he replied. Chilavert certainly looked relaxed and unconcerned as he nearly planted the first direct free kick taken by a goalkeeper in World Cup history into the Bulgarian net.. In retrospect, it seems an immense tragedy that Bulgarian goalkeeper Zdravko Zdravkov made the save he made to prevent Chilavert’s shot.
On matchday two, in Saint Etienne, Chilavert’s more traditional attributes as a goalkeeper would be put to the test by a Spanish team that included Luis Enrique, Raúl and Fernando Morientes. Although the Bulldog did not waver in his efforts and made a sequence of excellent reaction stops to keep the score 0-0.
With Group D closed, Paraguay needed to turn draws into wins. The South Americans produced one of their best World Cup performances, beating Nigeria 3-1 in Toulouse on June 24. Chilavert was first defeated in France by Wilson Oruma. Still, his acrobatics throughout the remainder of the tie provided a solid platform for Paraguayan success. Their victory earned them a pass to the knockout rounds along with the Africans, since Spain was left out of the tournament along with Bulgaria.
World Cup 1998: The start and the aftermath
Four days later, Paraguay faced France, host country and competition favourite, in Lens. And although the Bleus had a higher class and the support of more than 30,000 people at the Stade Félix-Bollaert, they could not break the modest ones.
A combination of industrial tackles, tenacious defense and more heroics from Chilavert took the round of 16 clash into extra time. There, a shot by defender Laurent Blanc in the 114th minute ended up separating the teams. Paraguay was a few minutes away from reaching a penalty shootout in which they could well have had an advantage. Especially with Chilavert’s sizeable presence lurking, though his achievement in France is still considered vast.
Chilavert’s performances earned him a well-deserved selection to the tournament’s “All Star” panel. In it, were 16 of the best players of the 1998 World Cup, according to those who chose him. Afterwards, Chilavert swore he would become the first goalkeeper to score in a World Cup in future iterations, although this great goalkeeper never got the chance to play in one again.
The veteran goalkeeper closed his stage as a player at his beloved Vélez Sarsfield, with whom he last played in 2004. The year before, he played his last game for Paraguay, and when he wore his country’s colors for the last time, he had scored eight goals in 74 games. This made him the highest scoring international goalkeeper of all time, a record that still stands.
