The Wait Goes On

Former Blues goalkeeper Lawrence Vigouroux will be part of Chile’s World Cup qualifying squad tonight, but will most likely stay on the bench yet again. It is the fifteenth time the Londoner, 31, will be in La Roja’s squad over the past seven years and he is yet to be given his international debut. Chile face Bolivia away in El Alto (the city with the highest elevation in the world) at 9pm Irish time tonight, but the keeper’s hopes of a first appearance are unlikely to be so lofty. 

Getting a game with Chile is a problem for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they play so few friendly matches and, of course, being a goalkeeper severely limits the chances of making an appearance as a substitute. South American teams play eighteen competitive games in every World Cup qualification group and there are relentless Copa America fixtures too. 

Secondly, former Manchester City and Barcelona goalkeeper Claudio Bravo dominated the number one shirt, amassing 150 caps over twenty years before retiring in 2024. The current first choice, Brayan Cortes, has 22 caps, but neither sub keeper (Vigouroux nor Gabriel Castellon) has made their senior international debut despite both being in their thirties. Having been in the national squad for five friendlies in 2018 and ’19 and then been recalled last September for ten World Cup qualifiers to date, Lawrence has had to remain perfectly patient.

 

Vigouroux had to watch Messi from the bench on Friday

 

It was the same on Friday when world champions Argentina came to Santiago for a 1-0 win that secured their place in the 2026 finals. Vigouroux was a substitute, as was Lionel Messi for the visitors. Julian Alvarez scored the winning goal and there was a clean sheet for Emi Martinez. Messi came off the bench in the 57th minute, but Inter Milan captain Lautaro Martinez was an unused substitute. Lawrence sat and watched again.

Chile, ranked 52nd in the world, are bottom of the CONMEBOL World Cup qualifying table and a loss in Bolivia would see them eliminated from contention for even a playoff with two more games left. They still rely heavily on the ageing Arturo Vidal and Alexis Sanchez and have only won two of their fifteen matches so far. Perhaps, manager Ricardo Gareca could turn to his reserve goalkeepers for the last, pretty meaningless qualifiers while another opportunity would be in the friendly against Iran in Tehran this coming October.

When I interviewed Lawrence in 2018, he told me about his first experience with the national team as a 19-year-old at the South American Youth Championship in 2013. “My Dad is Chilean,” he said of Hirian who still stays in touch with Waterford fans. “I flew over on Christmas Day. It was a fourteen-hour flight and then I went training straightaway. We had 40,000 fans at the game against Argentina. I’m fluent in Spanish now - I learned it when I was there. It was sink or swim because I was there for a month-and-a-half so I picked it up in the environment.”

 

Training with Chile last week

 

He also told me about his first visit to Waterford as a young boy. The family took a holiday in the southeast when Lawrence was 11 and he has a vivid memory of a day-trip to Ireland’s oldest city. “When I came here as a kid, I was in Wexford and we came to Waterford. I remembered the bridge as you come into the city and looking at the shops from across the river. So, I already felt a connection.”

Vigouroux played youth team football with Tottenham Hotspur and, then, Liverpool. He was the Reds’ goalkeeper in their reserves' 6-0 win against Waterford United at the RSC in the summer of 2015. He moved on to Swindon Town and gained notoriety for paying a £50 club fine in pennies. Vigouroux went on to win Swindon’s Player of the Year award in League One for the 2016/17 season. 

Having fallen out of favour with Swindon manager David Flitcroft, it was decided by Lee Power, chairman of both Swindon and Waterford at the time, to send Lawrence on loan to the RSC in February 2018. He could have sulked, but, instead, embraced the challenge and used his spell on Suirside to reignite his career. Vigouroux loved his time in Waterford and helped build an incredible team bond that year. He played nineteen games for the Blues, keeping six clean sheets and making regular top-class saves as Alan Reynolds’ team stayed in the top three throughout the goalkeeper’s time here. 

 

 

After Swindon, he took the big step of moving to Chile in 2019 to play for Everton de Vina del Mar in the Primera Division, but mass nationwide protests over inequality led to the cancellation of the football calendar. Lawrence then had three outstanding seasons with Leyton Orient which earned him a move to Premier Division Burnley as a back-up to James Trafford. He switched to Swansea City last summer on a three-year deal and has been a resounding success in the Championship, keeping fourteen clean sheets this season – the most outside the three promoted clubs. 

Vigouroux’s career has been a huge success and his time in Waterford played a major role in reinvigorating it. An international debut would cap it off and he deserves it for his patience.