It has been over 20 years since Victor Valdés' journey to becoming a Barcelona legend began. He has been one of the main ingredients in a successful Barcelona squad and it will be unnatural to see his name absent from the Barça starting eleven(11) come next season. Valdés never wanted to be a goalkeeper, but became motivated by the mere fact that if he became a senior team player, he would be on national TV. It was the 2003-04 season when Victor's dream finally came true. He made the switch to the FC Barcelona full team from Barcelona B and the youth system. Since then he has never looked back and has gone on to achieve many great things with Barça. The first came in the form of the 2004-05 La Liga trophy after he helped Barcelona to break a six year league title drought.

Victor Valdes has gone through the good, the bad and even some hilarious and ugly times at Barça. Can you remember the countless mistakes he made from the pressure of Barcelona's passing game? Hence, giving opposing strikers easy goals due to his inaccurate passes where if he was in another team he would have been simple asked to clear the ball instead of being fancy. Also, it is hard to forget the UEFA Champions League finals when he made some incredible saves to keep Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United at bay on several occasions.

Victor has gone on to win over 19 trophies with FC Barcelona including five(5) La Liga, three(3) Champions League and two(2) Copa del Rey trophies. Despite such illustrious achievements, Valdés has failed to really kickstart his national career for Spain. He has been the understudy to his club rival Iker Casillas.

Valdés, however, has won the Champions League once more than Casillas, and has also won the Zamora Trophy (Spain’s best keeper award) for a record five times. However, his record was not enough to displace Casillas as Spain’s first choice stopper.

Although, he failed to establish himself on the national team, Valdés has continued to succeed at Barcelona. He recently announced his desire to leave the Camp Nou and ply his trade abroad. He says it is time for a change in his life. His family wants to experience new and different cultures.

When it is all said and done, at the end of the 2013-14, Valdés may add to his trophy case but come the new season he will be gone, providing that he doesn’t have a change of heart. The Barcelona faithful will proudly reaccept him with open arms. However, if he does leave the Camp Nou he will be given the best of wishes from all of FC Barcelona. Victor Valdés deserves a standing ovation and lets pray he leaves with a bang!! THANK YOU V.V

VAVEL Logo
About the author
Damani Williams
I am from the caribbean island of St Vincent. I am a young man who looks at a lot of sporting activities. I also read a lot of sports news and world news. I thought I am going to make writing a new hobby of mine and more so write about the thing I love most which is sports.