Jose Luis Chilavert hits out at Diego Maradona over Victor Valdes jibe

Legendary Paraguay goalkeeper Jose Luis Chilavert has launched an astonishing attack on Al Wasl coach Diego Maradona, claiming the Argentine has done “a lot of damage to football.”

Chilavert, famed for his free kick taking ability which saw him score an incredible 62 goals during his career, was responding to Maradona’s claim that Barcelona’s Victor Valdes is a “bad” goalkeeper.

Chilavert, however, claimed that Valdes is the best goalkeeper in the world, and that Maradona “knows nothing about football”.

“For me, Valdes is the best in the world,” Chilavert told COM Radio. “When Barca need calm, he transmits that. He also has great capacity and handling.”

Chilavert’s analysis does seem to have some credibility, considering Valdes has won the won the Zamora Trophy a record-equalling four times, Spain’s award for the goalkeeper that has the lowest goals-to-games ratio in La Liga.

Maradona had claimed that Barcelona’s recent run of success was achieved in spite of Valdes, rather than because of him. The Al Wasl boss told Sport360° in an excluisve interview last week, “Barcelona are such a great team, even a bad goalkeeper seems good. It’s true. [Valdes] is bad! But with all the players he has in front of him even he looks good.”

Chilavert, who retired from football in 2004 after making 74 appearances for Paraguay, went on to criticise Maradona, insisting that the Al Wasl coach is not an example in the game. “Maradona knows nothing about football... he has done a lot of damage to football.”

Chilavert, who was named International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) World’s Best Goalkeeper three times in his career, wasn’t finished there, and claimed that Maradona comes a distant second to Lionel Messi when considering the greatest player of all-time. “Messi is the best, he is better than Maradona. At Messi’s age, Maradona had not won not even one per cent of what Messi has won,” he said.

Not a big fan of El Diego then, Jose?