Colombia making, mourning history with first quarterfinal
BRASILIA, BRAZIL — Colombia will mark two soccer milestones this week. One is happy, the other tragic. One inspires pride, the other sorrow.
And, chances are, one doesn’t happen without the other.
Today, Colombia plays in a World Cup quarterfinal for the first time. With four wins in as many tries in Brazil, Colombia won more World Cup games in 12 days than it had in its previous four tournament appearances combined.
“We are making history,” said midfielder James Rodriguez, so far perhaps the best player on the best team in this World Cup.
Andres Escobar is also part of Colombian soccer history. Wednesday marked the 20th anniversary of his murder outside a bar in Medellin, retribution for his own goal that knocked Colombia out of the 1994 World Cup in the first round.
Escobar was shot six times by two gunmen, one of them shouting “Gooool” as Escobar writhed on the pavement.
The killer couldn’t have known it then, but that moment was a turning point for Colombia, where soccer hasn’t been looked at the same way since.
More than 120,000 mourners attended Escobar’s funeral. A statue was dedicated to him in his hometown of Medellin, and his family honored him by founding a soccer program for disadvantaged youth.
And that’s where the two events — the joy and the tragedy, the pride and the sorrow — intersect.
Escobar’s death was pinned on the leaders of a drug cartel who had bet heavily on Colombia and lost. Colombia’s rapid rise in world soccer in the 1980s and ’90s was funded largely by the cartels, which expected to profit from its largess. So, with threats and intimidation raining down, Escobar and his teammates were playing under almost unbearable pressure.
The country and its fans since learned the obvious lesson. So while this year’s team, the first from Colombia to make the World Cup in 16 years, has captured the country’s imagination, fans there have greeted the success more with enthusiasm than expectation — with plaudits, not pressure.
The team has responded in kind, playing with more joy and passion than any other in the tournament. Colombia, in fact, is playing the kind of attractive, free-flowing soccer normally associated with Brazil, its quarterfinal foe. And it’s the tragedy that fuels the joy. “Go Colombia. Win in honor of Andres Escobar,” one fan wrote on Twitter. Others, continuing a tradition that began 20 years ago, have toted oversized pictures of Escobar — his face forever frozen in a wry grin, one eyebrow arched — to the games or public viewing parties.
“We will never stop thinking about him or feeling that he is one of our own,” former Colombia defender Jorge Bermudez told a news agency this week. “Every Colombia triumph will also be, in some way, his.”
And so the Colombian team — Escobar’s team — will take the field today not weighed down by history but inspired by it. Meanwhile, its opponent, host Brazil, is facing enormous pressure to win and justify the $11.5 billion the country has spent to stage the monthlong event.
If one word could sum up the mood around the Colombian team, it would be “dream.” And Argentine-born coach Jose Pekerman has done a masterful job managing that mood, keeping his
“Every Colombia triumph will also be, in some way, his.” Former Colombia defender Jorge Bermudez on late teammate Andres Escobar
team focused on one game at a time.
“When you have a dream and you really pursue it and picture things like this happening, then it can become a reality,” said Rodriguez, who is having a superb World Cup with a tournament-high five goals. “If you want something and you work hard for it, then it can happen.”
Which isn’t to say Colombia hasn’t faced adversities of its own.
Radamel Falcao, the team’s unquestioned leader and star striker, was left off the World Cup team with a knee injury. That was expected to cripple Colombia, which came into the tournament a 33-1 long shot to win. But Rodriguez, a 22-year-old who plays for AS Monaco, has stepped up to fill that void, scoring in each of Colombia’s four wins. And now the dream team is just two wins away from the final.
“For me, special talents are those who do things that are completely out of the ordinary,” Uruguayan coach Oscar Tabarez said after Rodriguez scored both goals in Colombia’s 2-0 round-of-16 win. “Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, James Rodriguez — they do things because they have certain gifts that make them special.
“I believe he’s the best player at the World Cup. I don’t think I’m exaggerating.”