Julio César Dely Valdés (born March 12, 1967) is a Panamanian former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a striker. He is a

twin Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two ...

brother of Jorge Dely Valdés and younger brother of Armando Dely Valdés.

Club career

Born in Colón, Dely Valdés began his professional career in 1987 in Argentina with Deportivo Paraguayo of Argentina (after trying out with the Argentinos Juniors' Squad), where he scored 28 goals. He then moved to

Club Nacional de Football Club Nacional de Football (, ''National Football Club'') is a Uruguayan professional sports club based in La Blanqueada, La Blanqueada, Montevideo. The club was founded on 14 May 1899 as a result of the merger between ''Uruguay Athletic Club'' an ...

in Uruguay, where he scored more than 100 goals and won the Uruguayan Championship in 1992. In

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, he played for

Cagliari Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

and

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain () or simply PSG, is a French professional Association football, football club based in Paris. They compete in Ligue 1, the French football league system, top d ...

in the French Première Division with Brazilian players like Raí and Leonardo . Nicknamed ''Panagol'', he then played in Spain's '' Primera División'' with Real Oviedo for three seasons and with

Málaga Málaga (; ) is a Municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 591,637 in 2024, it is the second-most populo ...

for another three, where he became the most prolific goal scorer in Málaga's history in '' Primera División'', before returning to Nacional. He retired in 2006 after two seasons with Panamanian club Arabe Unido.

International career

Dely Valdés made his debut for

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

in a May 1991 UNCAF Nations Cup match against

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

and earned a total of 44 caps, scoring 18 goals. He represented his country in 27

FIFA World Cup qualification The FIFA World Cup qualification is a set of competitive matches that a national association football team plays in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the men's FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments ar ...

matches and was a member of the 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cup team, that finished second in the tournament, losing the final against USA in a penalty shootout. He also played at the

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

and

2003 UNCAF Nations Cup The 2003 UNCAF Nations Cup was an association football tournament. It was held in two venues in Panama in February 2003, and was played in a Round-robin tournament, round robin tournament, each of the 6 teams playing each other once. Costa Rica ...

s. Both he and his twin brother announced their international retirement in November 2004, but they both returned for a final Gold Cup tournament and World Cup qualification matches in 2005. His final international was an October 2005

match against the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, just as his twin brother Jorge.

Managerial career

Dely Valdés became a coach after his playing career ended. He signed with his former team,

, as an assistant manager for head coach Antonio Tapia. He left the club on June 16, 2010, after the arrival of new Qatari owner Abdullah bin Nasser bin Abdullah Al Ahmed Al Thani. The entire team and staff was rebuilt, and Dely Valdés did not have his contract renewed. On September 14, 2010, Dely Valdés became head coach of the Panama national team after FEPAFUT chose him over the

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

n Luis Fernando Suarez. The contract was for 10 months which included the Copa Centroamericana and the

CONCACAF Gold Cup The CONCACAF Gold Cup () is an association football competition organized by CONCACAF as its top continental tournament for men's senior national teams from North America, Central America and the Caribbean. The tournament is held every two ...

with an optional extension to include the FIFA World Cup qualifiers. He appointed twin brother Jorge as his assistant. They led Panama to the final round of World Cup qualifying but ultimately fell short, after which the Dely Valdés brothers were not retained as managers. Julio was put in charge at Árabe Unido in August 2014 and was announced as the manager at Águila in El Salvador on December 31, 2014.

Career statistics

:''Scores and results list Panama's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Dely Valdés goal.''

Honours

Nacional *

Primera División Uruguaya Primera may refer to * Nissan Primera, a car * Primera Air Primera Air Scandinavia Aktieselskab, A/S, was a Denmark, Danish airline owned by Primera Travel Group. It provided scheduled and charter passenger services from Northern Europe to mo ...

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

Paris Saint-Germain *

Trophée des Champions The Trophée des Champions (, ) is a French association football trophy contested in an annual match between the champions of Ligue 1 and the winners of the Coupe de France. It is equivalent to the Super cup, super cups found in many other count ...

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European association football, football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The competition's official name was originally the European Cup Winners' Cup; it was renam ...

: 1995–96 Malaga *

UEFA Intertoto Cup The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from , "between" and , " betting pool"),Most precisely, from ( football pool); cf. originally called the International Football Cup, was a summer football competition between European clubs. The competition was dis ...

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

Panama *

runner-up:

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

Individual * CONCACAF Team of the Century: 1998 * IFFHS CONCACAF Men's Team of All Time: 2021

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dely Valdes, Julio 1967 births Living people Footballers from Colón, Panama Panamanian twins Men's association football forwards Panamanian men's footballers 20th-century Panamanian sportsmen Panama men's international footballers 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cup players Deportivo Paraguayo footballers Club Nacional de Football players Uruguayan Primera División players Cagliari Calcio players Serie A players Paris Saint-Germain FC players Ligue 1 players Real Oviedo players Málaga CF players La Liga players C.D. Árabe Unido players Panamanian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Argentina Expatriate men's footballers in Uruguay Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Expatriate men's footballers in France Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Panamanian football managers Atlético Malagueño managers Panama national football team managers 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup managers C.D. Águila managers 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup managers Panamanian expatriate football managers