On 23 June 1994, Colombia faced the USA in their second game of World Cup Group A in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl. Following a qualification programme where they had suffered defeat only once across the gruelling 26-game schedule, culminating in a hugely celebrated 0-5 victory over Argentina in Buenos Aires, the South Americans were strongly fancied to go deep into the tournament. Pelé had even tipped them as strong contenders to lift the trophy.

The tournament had arrived at a time when Colombia’s ‘Golden Generation’ was at its height. Scorpion-kicking goalkeeper Rene Higuita, although more recognised for his extravagantly coiffured hair and tendency to wander from his penalty area, was still a more than decent guardian between the posts. Carlos Valderrama of the strawberry blond locks and pinpoint passes was strolling around the midfield with an elegant air of superiority. Faustino Asprilla, in attack alongside Freddy Rincon, was displaying the skills that would later convince first Parma, and later Newcastle United, to invest in his extravagant goalscoring ability. Perhaps the best known, and most celebrated, amongst this collection of Colombian talent, however, was skipper Andrés Escobar. Composed, reassuring and with an ability to read the game, he was almost the epitome of an ideal defender. An approach had been made by AC Milan to take Escobar to Serie A and persistent rumours of a transfer for the 1994-95 suggested a move to Europe was in the offing. It would not only offer the supreme test of the 27-year-old’s ability as he was approaching the peak years of his career, but also provide a stage where his skills could be appreciated by a wider audience. 

Why had this generation flourished? There’s more than one answer to that of course, as Francisco Maturana, both national coach at the 1994 World Cup, and also coach of Andrés Escobar’s Atlético Nacional club explained. ‘Two factors converged. One, we had exceptionally good players. Two, we had the money to keep our good players. The introduction of drug money in soccer allowed us to bring in great foreign players. We were living in a violent time, in a country fraught with social problems that could not be divorced from football. The drug trade is an octopus.’ It was just one example of the intertwined relationship between organised crime and football in Colombia, but more of that later.

Back in Pasadena, following defeat in their opening group game to a Gheorghe Hagi-inspired Romania, the encounter against the hosts had now acquired a do-or-die level of importance. Tragically, as the game kicked off in the heat of the Californian afternoon, no one knew how tragically apposite that assessment would become.

For most of the first-half, the Colombians pressed forward in urgent endeavour, seeking the breakthrough, that would allow them to move on, win the game and resurrect their hopes of progress to the knockout stage, with the seemingly comfortable fixture of facing Switzerland to follow. The team, however, appeared distracted and out of sorts and, despite peppering the USA goal and dominating the game for long periods, when their early pressure failed to deliver any tangible reward, their opponents came more into the game. The reasons why their play was lacking its usual fluidity would become clearer later. Ten minutes ahead of the break, with the game still deadlocked at 0-0, the former Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County midfielder drilled a low cross into the Colombia box from the right flank.

The calm and assured presence of skipper Andrés Escobar had been a key factor in Colombia’s march towards qualification with the defender now almost a national hero in the country. He was intelligent, articulate and, in a country bedevilled by the twin terrors of dominant drug cartels and corruption, a pillar of decency. As the ball arrowed towards the Colombia penalty area though, fate was about to deliver a malignant and undeserved blight.

Perfectly positioned, as always, Escobar was patrolling the area and acutely aware of the potential danger of an American player lurking behind him. If the ball had eluded him, any advancing forward would be clear, with the simple task of placing the ball past goalkeeper Óscar Córdoba and into the net. Feeling compelled to act, Escobar slid in to block the cross, but only managed to divert the ball towards goal. Hopelessly put out of position by the diversion, Córdoba could only watch aghast as the ball rolled into the net. In 230 league games for his clubs and 51 for Colombia, it was both the first, and last, own goal of Andrés Escobar’s illustrious career.

With the ball nestling in the back of the net, and Escobar looking on in desperate desolation, back in his home city of Medellín, his nine-year-old nephew Felipe turned tearfully to his mother. ‘They are going to kill Andres,’ he said slowly. The solemn frankness of her son’s words chilled his mother, but she calmed Felipe with words of quiet reassurance. ’No sweetheart,’ she said drawing her troubled son towards her. ‘People aren’t killed for mistakes. Everyone in Colombia loves Andrés.’ Less than two weeks later however, those comforting words would ring hollow, as little Felipe was proved chillingly correct. Andrés Escobar lay dying in a car park with multiple gunshot wounds.

The own goal had torn asunder the fragile confidence of the Colombians. Earnie Stewart netted the second USA goal seven minutes after half-time and a last-minute Colombia goal from Adolfo Valencia was of no consolation at all. The South Americans’ dream had been shattered, and a 2-0 win over Switzerland in the group’s final rubber, when both teams were already eliminated, was of interest only to statisticians. Colombia finished bottom of a group they had widely been expected to win.

The 2022 Global Peace Index Report rated Colombia as just outside of the top 20 most dangerous countries in the world to live in. A frightening enough scenario but, back in the early 1990s, the country would have ranked much higher. In 1993, Colombia had the highest murder rate in the world, and this only took into account the officially recorded deaths. Many of those that occurred in the darkest of corners of the darkest nights, in those dark days, where victims had been surviving outside of any semblance of normal life, went undocumented. This was the country to which the Colombian team would return after the humiliation of early elimination from the World Cup.

Football has a unique place in Colombian psyche. Be they the penniless street children, or drug barons whose alternative rule was often more strongly felt than that of the official government, football offered Colombians a definition of their country away from the often terrifying ordeal of what passed for normal life. Many clubs were commonly accepted to be associated with particular drug cartel leaders. One of the most notorious of those leaders was Pablo Escobar – no relation to Andrés ­– who was strongly linked to the Atlético Nacional club in Medellín, where Andrés, and many of his international team-mates played. Notoriety, an apparent love of football and funding of their club, plus money spent to provide football pitches in the most deprived areas of the city led to Escobar being perceived in an almost Robin Hood-esque way by the poor of Medellín. This was, however, no philanthropic social reformer. Pablo Escobar’s financial empire was constructed on the drug trade, and maintained on the backs of the misery of people whose lives were destroyed by its pernicious evil. Reports suggest he was also responsible for the murder of judges and politicians brave enough to stand against him, more than 500 policemen, and untold numbers of members of other cartels disposed of in murderous disputes.

Drug money fuelled the success of many of Colombia’s best-known clubs, as it was laundered through the turnstiles. It allowed these clubs to keep some of the country’s best players at home, rather than see them spirited across the Atlantic by the seductive Siron-song of European football. The effect of the drug money alluded to by Maturana had also helped to grow the national team and its success was a balm to the day-to-day struggles endured by many Colombians. As with the Cote d’Ivoire squads of more recent times, the Colombian national team were a unifying symbol of a country torn asunder by crime, corruption and social problems. A situation, and responsibility, recognised and accepted by Andrés Escobar. Before leaving to head to the USA, he alluded to the task before him and his team.  ‘We are all working for a common cause – to make our country proud. We’re trying to not focus on the violence. I find motivation in the good things to come. I try to read a bit of the Bible each day. My bookmarks are two photos. One of my late mother, the other of my fiancée.’

Despite his hopes to the contrary however, the “octopus” of the drug trade would wrap its tentacles around the national team. Even before they left Colombia, Higuita was jailed for his relationship with Pablo Escobar, but that was merely a brief, and relatively mild, diversion from what would later follow.  Defender Luis Fernando Herrera’s brother died in a mysterious car crash and, Maturana later revealed that, after the defeat to Romania, he was told that unless he dropped Barrabas Gomez, the lives of the entire squad would be in peril. ‘I couldn’t put another’s life in danger – Barrabas was a key player but they had me beat,’ he confessed. ‘We called home, there were riots, complete chaos and that’s how we entered the field (against the USA).’ The reasons for the team’s below par performance in that game were becoming clear, but there was more to come, as further death threats were delivered. ‘Someone programmed the hotel’s TVs – it freaked us out!’ The coach revealed. Unsurprisingly, there was turmoil amongst the squad, with some simply refusing to play for fear of the consequences. Reports suggest that it was Andrés Escobar leading the call that convinced the team that it needed to go out and play, when others were reluctant. If such reports are accurate, not only do they underscore the respect with which the team captain was held, but also the irony that, after his noble stand, it was he who would pay the ultimate price.

The full facts of the situation will probably never be revealed. Some suggest that large amounts drug cartel money had been wagered on the Colombians winning the game, whilst other, perhaps not contradictory, say that American mafiosi funds had been gambled on the opposite outcome. If there’s any measure of truth in both those scenarios being true, the phrase of being stuck between a rock and a hard place hardly covers the dilemma facing Andrés Escobar and his team-mates. Had the team’s performance been influenced by outside factors? If so, it’s understandable that the perception of Escobar’s error in conceding the own goal would have been seen, distorted by a situation where death threats and money are seen to hold more sway than tactics and technique, as treacherous.

Andrés Escobar had planned to travel around America with his fiancée, Pamela Cascardo, after the World Cup, but the events in the tournament had seen such plans curtailed. Instead, he flew back to Colombia, believing that he was honour bound to do so and make peace with his people. Friends and family counselled against the decision. Emotions were running high in the country as hopes of glory had plummeted into despair and angry frustration. Someone had to be blamed. Someone had to pay the price. Maturana had joined in the chorus seeking to persuade Escobar to delay his return home but, as he recalled, the team captain was adamant. ‘No, I must show face to my people,’ he insisted. It was typically noble and courageous, but ultimately a fatal decision.

Andrés Escobar was with friends in Medillín’s El Indio bar when another group of men recognised him and began taunting him about the own goal and how he had betrayed the country. In typically calm manner, he tried to avoid any confrontation and, after realising that reasoning with the men was futile, he walked away from them, leaving his friends behind. In such a violent society, discretion rarely prevails though, and violence was almost inevitable. His abusers followed him outside, continuing to rail against him with threats and insults. Moments later gunshots rang out and Andrés Escobar lay on the ground, with multiple bullet wounds to his back, and his life slowly ebbing away in the blood running from the wounds.

The murder of Andrés Escobar was attributed to a drunken row by witnesses in the bar, but later investigations gave credence to the reports that Colombia’s drug cartels had indeed lost large amounts of money betting on Colombia beating the USA. When that failed to happen, someone was going to have to pay the price. The fatal cocktail of drugs, money and football was a lethal combination. The number plate of the car used by the killer(s) – some said it was one man who fired six shots, whilst others recall two men having guns, with twelve shots being despatched into Escobar – to flee the murder scene was taken and passed to police by two witnesses. It was traced to the Gallon brothers, former renegade members of Pablo Escobar’s cartel.

In the 2010 ESPN documentary called The Two Escobars, a former henchman of Pablo Escobar, Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, alleged that a sum in the region of $3 million was paid to persuade the prosecutor’s office to focus their investigation on one of the bodyguards. Later, Humberto Castro Muñoz confessed to Escobar’s murder and was sentenced to 43 years in prison. He served only 11 however, before being released for good behaviour. 

Interviewed by Gonzalo Medina, Andres Escobar was asked why he liked football. His answer carried a poignant but chillingly inaccurate reply. ‘This sport illustrates the close relationship between life and the game. In football, unlike bullfighting, there is no death. In football no one dies; no one gets killed. It’s more about the fun of it, about enjoying.’ Even for a nation brought low by a combination of gnawing poverty, all pervasive crime and a culture where life is cheap, the death of Andrés Escobar was a tragic event.

Seeking to rationalise the events of the World Cup and look forward to a hopefully bright future for his country and compatriots, Escobar had earlier offered these simple, but emotional words in the Colombian newspaper El Tiempe. ‘Life doesn’t end here. We have to go on. Life cannot end here. No matter how difficult, we must stand back up. We only have two options: either allow anger to paralyse us and the violence continues, or we overcome and try our best to help others. It’s our choice. Let us please maintain respect. My warmest regards to everyone. It’s been a most amazing and rare experience. We’ll see each other again soon because life does not end here.’ He was talking about the loss of a football game, but could so easily have been addressing the fight that Colombia itself was facing. A fight that would soon engulf him as one of its victims. Bill Shankly once famously said that, ‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.’ Whilst the old sage of Anfield was correct about so many things in the game, there’s surely little doubt that he’d be happy to review his opinion when referring to the tragic fate of Andrés Escobar.

(This article was originally produced for the ‘Colombia’ magazine from These Football Times).