Football Orphan: Andres Escobar. “El Caballero del Futbol”

Photo courtesy of ca.ibtimes.com

In a widening knowledge of football on a global scale, not many will be familiar with the club Atletico National over this side of the world. Hailing from a city in Columbia called Medellin they are a club doused in history. Earlier in the year they were crowned with their eleventh title having won the Liga Postobon. (The Colombian league is separated into two halves before determining a winner by a knock out process. The second half repeats the format again.) They currently find themselves perched top of the table in the Liga Postobon II.(Second stage of the league campaign) Nacional have had many a house hold names as past players including the likes of Faustino Asprilla who was part of Kevin Keegan‘s Newcastle United revolution in the mid nineties, the infamous goalkeeper with the Scorpion kick against England at Wembley Rene Higuita and Juan Pablo Angel formerly of Aston Villa.

Atletico Nacional‘s most famous son was a young man by the name of Andres Escobar. He spent seven seasons with the club in two separate spells between 1987 and 1994. This was to be the glory days of not only Atletico Nacional but Colombian football across the spectrum. El Verde y Blanco (The green and Whites) had won the Copa Libertadores in 1989 fielding an all Colombian selection, they were refered to affectionately as “Los Puros Criollos”. Expectation was at fever pitch as the Colombian national side earned qualification to both the Italia ’90 and USA ’94 World Cup finals with a squad of home-grown super stars in abundance.

Andres Escobar had grown up playing youth football on the many fields which were funded by the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar (No relation). Their paths were to cross on other occasions when Andres was in the national side requested to play exhibition games at Pablo’s ranch in Colombia. Pablo Escobar was known to be an incredible football enthusiast, as money was no object, he would often summon famous players to play exhibition style games and reward all participants handsomely.

It was the group stage of the USA ’94 tournament where the bedrock of the tragedy began. Having already lost to Romania, Colombia now needed a positive result from the game against hosts USA to have any hope of progression. In the 34th minute Escobar hung out a leg to intercept a cross when he diverted past his own goalkeeper. Colombia went on to lose the game 2-1 and were eliminated from the tournament. Having been widely expected to make a major impression in the competition, they now were deemed failures with a premature exit.

On the 2nd of July 1994 after returning home from World Cup duty, Andres Escobar had been enjoying an evening out with friends. When he returned to his car to make his way home, Escobar made an attempt to leave the car park when three males and a female approached him and an altercation began to escalate with the player. Moments later 12 shots were fired and Andres Escobar was pronounced dead within the hour. It transpired that this was a punishment killing, the huge gambling losses due to the national teams exit at the group stage of the World Cup was alleged to be  motive . It is believed that had Pablo Escobar still been alive at the time of the killing, Humberto Castro Muñoz would never have ordered the murder of Escobar. Over 120, 000 people attended the funeral of Andres Escobar and a statue of “El Caballero del Futbol” (The Gentleman of football) was erected in his honour in his hometown of Medellin in 2002.

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