Jorge Dely Valdés


Jorge Luis Dely Valdés is a Panamanian former footballer who played as a forward. He is a twin brother of Julio Dely Valdés and younger brother of Armando Dely Valdés.

Club career

Born in Colon, Dely Valdés began his professional career in 1989 in Argentina with Deportivo Paraguayo of Argentina, where he scored 28 goals. A move to El Porvenir for the 1990 season did not prove successful, as a leg injury kept him out most of the season, and he moved to Nacional of Uruguay the next season, where he won the Uruguayan Championship in 1992. In the next year, he won the Chilean Cup championship with Unión Española.
Dely Valdés then moved to the Japan Football League, where he played with Toshiba. In his first season, 1993, he led the Japan Football scoring table with 20 goals, and improved that in 1994, again leading the league with 34. Delys Valdés was transferred to Cerezo Osaka for the 1995 season, and continued his dominance, scoring 19 goals. In the subsequent season he moved to Tosu Futures, where he scored 24 goals. For the 1998 season, Dely Valdés was signed by a Japan Football League club, Consadole Sapporo, looking to return to the first division; Jorge helped the team do just that, by scoring 40 goals in leading the team back. Dely Valdés remained with Sapporo in 1999, scoring 20 goals that season. He left them after the 1998 season.
Dely Valdés returned to CONCACAF following the 1999 J. League season to play in Major League Soccer for the Colorado Rapids. Dely Valdés continued his scoring rate in the 1999 MLS season, registering 10 goals and 6 assists in 32 games for the Rapids. He continued to score in 2000, registering another 7 goals and 1 assist in 20 games, 13 starts, for the Rapids.
He returned to Japan to play for Omiya Ardija alongside compatriot Alfredo Anderson and joined Kawasaki Frontale in 2003.

International career

Jorge was a very dangerous striker for the Panama national team for over a decade, playing 27 games with the team in the 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Cup Qualifying cycles. He made his debut in a May 1991 UNCAF Nations Cup match against Honduras and earned a total of 48 caps, scoring 19 goals. He represented his country at the 1995 and 2001 UNCAF Nations Cups.
In the Gold Cup of 2005, he scored two goals and led Panama to the final match against the United States.
His final international was an October 2005 FIFA World Cup qualification match against the United States.

Managerial career

On August 8, 2014, he took over as manager at Tauro in his native Panama, a position he held until leaving on December 30, 2014 to join his brother Julio at Águila in El Salvador. He returned to Tauro in May 2015, only to be replaced by Rolando Palma in October 2015.
As coach of U-20 Panama, he managed to write history for the country by helping the national team to win the first ever match in the FIFA U-20 World Cup, a 2–1 victory over Asian champions U-20 Saudi Arabia in 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup and qualified to the round of sixteen for the first time ever in Panamanian history of the U-20 World Cup.

Career statistics

International

International goals

#DateVenueOpponentScoreResultCompetition
130 August 1996Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, Canada1–21–31998 FIFA World Cup qualification
222 September 1996Estadio Rommel Fernández, Panama City, Panama1–11–31998 FIFA World Cup qualification
310 November 1996Estadio Cuscatlán, San Salvador, El Salvador1–02–31998 FIFA World Cup qualification
410 November 1996Estadio Cuscatlán, San Salvador, El Salvador2–22–31998 FIFA World Cup qualification
515 December 1996Estadio Rommel Fernández, Panama City, Panama3–03–11998 FIFA World Cup qualification
65 December 1999Estadio Rommel Fernández, Panama City, Panama1–01–0Friendly match
77 May 2000Estadio Tiburcio Carías Andino, Tegucigalpa, Honduras1–11–32002 FIFA World Cup qualification
821 May 2000Estadio Rommel Fernández, Panama City, Panama2–04–02002 FIFA World Cup qualification
93 September 2000Estadio Azteca, Mexico City, Mexico1–31–72002 FIFA World Cup qualification
1023 May 2001Estadio Olímpico Metropolitano, San Pedro Sula, Honduras1–02–12001 UNCAF Nations Cup
1125 May 2001Estadio Tiburcio Carías Andino, Tegucigalpa, Honduras1–21–22001 UNCAF Nations Cup
1227 May 2001Estadio Excélsior, Puerto Cortés, Honduras1–06–02001 UNCAF Nations Cup
1327 May 2001Estadio Excélsior, Puerto Cortés, Honduras2–06–02001 UNCAF Nations Cup
1427 May 2001Estadio Excélsior, Puerto Cortés, Honduras4–06–02001 UNCAF Nations Cup
1527 May 2001Estadio Excélsior, Puerto Cortés, Honduras5–06–02001 UNCAF Nations Cup
163 June 2001Estadio Olímpico Metropolitano, San Pedro Sula, Honduras1–21–32001 UNCAF Nations Cup
1717 July 2005Reliant Stadium, Houston, USA1–01–12005 CONCACAF Gold Cup
1821 July 2005Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, USA2–03–22005 CONCACAF Gold Cup
1917 August 2005Estadio Mateo Flores, Guatemala City, Guatemala1–01–22006 FIFA World Cup qualification

Honours

Club

;Unión Española