Jorge Valdivia

A professional football player who loves to play as an attacking midfielder, Jorge Luis Valdivia Toro is a Chilean professional born in Venezuela. At a very young age, Valdivia moved back to Chile and got into the famous academy at Colo-Colo in 1990. From the age of 7, Valdivia worked towards becoming a professional football player, making his professional debut for the club’s first team in 2002, as a 19-year old.

He didn’t get to play too many games for the first team but over a period of 5 seasons, got about 40 appearances, most as a substitute, and scored 14 goals. During that period, he spent a year on loan, in 2003, to Universidad de Concepcion, scoring 7 goals in 30 games. He had another short loan spell in 2004, when he moved to Spain and signed with Rayo Vallecano in 2004. 5 games and a goal later, he was back in Chile.

In 2004-05, Valdivia went onto another loan move to Europe, this time to Servette in Switzerland, but returned with nothing much to show. In 2006, after winning the 2006 Primera Division Apertura title with Colo-Colo, Valdivia decided to move to Brazil and signed with Palmeiras. For three seasons, he became one of the first choice strikers for the team, playing 68 times and scoring 13 goals. He helped the club win the 2008 Campeonato Paulista title in the process.

He was already a member of the Chilean senior national team and had been a part of the 2007 Copa America side however, he was part of a group of 6 players who were thrown out of the national team for misbehaving with 2 waitresses during the tournament. Chile lost 6-1 to Brazil to crash out of the tournament!

Valdivia, on the club scene, was picking up his performances and had moved to the middle-east to sign up with Al-Ain in the UAE. He played 36 times and scored 20 goals over 2 seasons, before signing up with Palmeiras in Brazil. During his stay in the UAE, he won the 2008 Etisalat Emirates Cup, the 2008-09 UAE President Cup and the 2009 UAE Super Cup.

Since moving to Brazil in 2010, Valdivia has played 65 games and scored 9 goals on his way to a regular first team place. He continues to be a part of the national team.

On an individual level, 2007 was the best season for Valdivia when he won the Golden Ball award while playing for Palmeiras. He was also named as the best player in Brazil and the most valuable player of the Campeonato Paulista, an award he would receive again the following season. During the course of his career so far, Valdivia also won the 2009 UFL Most Valuable Player award, the 2009 Most Valuable Foreign Player award and was named to the 2011 Copa America first team.