Chilavert called France an African team, the traffic secret of the sixty year old veteran goalkeeper.

Just hours before the World Cup Round of 16 match between France and Paraguay kicks off, 60-year-old former national team goalkeeper José Luis Chilavert typed a line on X.

"Christophe, you are right. At the 1998 World Cup, we faced the French, but now Paraguay will face an African team."

Just a few words. Before a game had even started, the old man of sixty had blown the lid off French media. L'Équipe slapped the headline "Racist Attack" on it, and RMC Sport labeled the Paraguayan national icon "disgusting." French fans lined up in the comments to curse him out: the team does have many players of African descent, but they are legitimate internationals representing France. In Chilavert's eyes, passports and birthplaces are worthless; skin color is the only passport that counts.

The spark was actually thrown by someone else. Hours before the match, former French international Christophe Dugarry belittled Paraguay's playing style on the show Rothen s'enflamme, predicting the team would be thrashed by France in the Round of 16. Chilavert's tweet was aimed directly at Dugarry in retaliation.

The old South American tough guy getting provoked and firing back sounds like a protective act. Look at his record, and this isn't even a real slip-up.

As a player, he scored over sixty goals, a free-kick madman from the goalkeeper position, with a temper as fierce as his technique. After retiring, his mouth didn't even have a goalkeeper. He's called football a "male-only" sport. He's spewed homophobic slurs. He was sentenced to a year in prison—suspended, he didn't go in, but the verdict is on the books—for slandering South American Football Confederation president Alejandro Domínguez. A few years ago, he ran for president of Paraguay on an anti-LGBTQ+ platform and lost. In February this year, he fired another round of racist and homophobic attacks at Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé.

In less than five months, this is his second offense on racial issues. It has nothing to do with a quick tongue; it's purely a repeat offender punching the clock.

The French Football Federation will likely issue a statement condemning it, and FIFA might start disciplinary proceedings. Chilavert doesn't care. In South American football circles, the line between "true character" and "running your mouth" has always been blurry, and he's always stood on the wrong side of that line, never lacking an audience. Turning racism into a retirement pension is the cheapest way for a faded legend to monetize attention.

1998 World Cup Round of 16, France vs. Paraguay. When Laurent Blanc scored that golden goal, Chilavert stood in the goal, watching the ball hit the net.

Twenty-eight years later, the golden goal has long rusted. The man who once stood in goal now can only hang on in trending topics with one tweet. The lines on the pitch in Philadelphia are already painted; the French and Paraguayan players are warming up. Most of them have no memory of that 1998 match.