Speaker 1: In World Cup. The Colombian national team was staying in Fullerton, California,
Speaker 1: just south of Los Angeles. Fans poured in and out
Speaker 1: of the hotel lobby to take pictures with the players.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Fullerton? It's part of the
Speaker 1: vast expanse of concrete that makes up Orange County, California.
Speaker 1: Disney is just across the way. This wasn't like this
Speaker 1: secluded training grounds that the players were used to. They
Speaker 1: felt exposed. As the World Cup got under way, the
Speaker 1: Colombian team received death threats via facts. The welcome screens
Speaker 1: in the hotel room TVs were hacked, replaced with ominous
Speaker 1: messages from the fearsome cartel members back home. So when
Speaker 1: Colombia took the field in Pasadena's Rose Bowl, they were
Speaker 1: rightfully nervous and unsettled. They proceeded to lose to a
Speaker 1: barely professional USA team. Out of Columbia's captain famously scored
Speaker 1: an own goal. Collegery ay happy on the farce, I said,
Speaker 1: that's the score. Escobar on the go, and the United
Speaker 1: States reached Columbia. Ten days later, Acbad was shot to
Speaker 1: death outside of night club in Minaing It was at
Speaker 1: three thirty am in front of this restaurant, twenty seven
Speaker 1: year old Andres Escobar got into his car. He was
Speaker 1: surrounded and shot twelve times and killed. Allegedly, one of
Speaker 1: the sailants yelled thanks for the auto goal, So what
Speaker 1: the hell happened? This is the story of the gentleman
Speaker 1: of soccer and and his tragic death at the age
Speaker 1: of twenty seven. I'm Nando Vila and you're listening to
Speaker 1: the best soccer podcast in the world. Goes with it,
Speaker 1: but it's still like Christiano Ronaldo. Yes, yes, say in
Speaker 1: the Countian teams wonderful. That is a never sink. September five,
Speaker 1: Buenos Aitus, seventy five thousand Argentine fans were in El
Speaker 1: Moundumental Leave It played stadium where Argentina had never lost
Speaker 1: a World Cup qualifying match until nine. Columbia sealed World
Speaker 1: Cup qualification with a spectacular five nil win. The Argentine
Speaker 1: fans were so impressed they even gave Columbia a standing
Speaker 1: ovation after the final whistle. Columbia qualified for the World Cup,
Speaker 1: conceding a grand total of two goals zero losses. This
Speaker 1: Columbia team was good, I mean really good. Bell picked
Speaker 1: them as the favorites to win World Cup. Columb Obviously
Speaker 1: Columba n with escob that was an outstanding team. That
Speaker 1: was a team that could have won the World Cup
Speaker 1: ninety four. That's Marti, a senior writer for ESPN and
Speaker 1: was the captain. He was a tall, elegant central defender
Speaker 1: with a fluffie mulley and he was good, I mean
Speaker 1: really good. A C. Milan offered him a contract. Colombia
Speaker 1: being good at soccer was a new thing historically, that
Speaker 1: wasn't the case at all. Prior to they had only
Speaker 1: qualified for one World Cup and hadn't won a game.
Speaker 1: I had such an inferiority complex because especially Colombia, the
Speaker 1: Colombia national team before about the ninety nineties, it was
Speaker 1: really a poor relation to the kind of established teams
Speaker 1: on the continental lights of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and even
Speaker 1: I think at that point Peru and Chilea probably surpassed them.
Speaker 1: This is Daniel Edwards, a soccer journalist based in Buenos Aires,
Speaker 1: Colombia's a sent in the nineties. Coincided with Andres Cobad,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't the main cause. It was another Escobard
Speaker 1: really Pablo Escobar heard of him. It started with petty crime.
Speaker 1: Aolo and his brother Roberto were trying to make some
Speaker 1: money in the seventies. Of kidnapping earned them a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, so crime paid. They moved into smuggling, particularly cocaine,
Speaker 1: and by the eighties Pablo escobad supplied eight percent of
Speaker 1: the world's cocaine. He made sixty million dollars a day.
Speaker 1: He had mountains of cash buried in the countryside. How
Speaker 1: do you launder that much illicit money, Well, if you're
Speaker 1: Pablo Escobar, then you buy a soccer team. His name
Speaker 1: could never officially be on it, of course, but he
Speaker 1: ran NA It caught on. Rival drug lords did the
Speaker 1: same with rival clubs. J. Mexicano ran Minos, the Kylie
Speaker 1: Cartel ran a Medical Gali. Suddenly Colombian clubs had enough
Speaker 1: money to keep hold of their best players, and they
Speaker 1: could afford to hire talented foreign ones, and Colombian soccer
Speaker 1: took off. They called it natico fud. Pablo started building
Speaker 1: soccer fields with floodlights and slums. There's a bunch of
Speaker 1: videos of Escobar at these unveilings, looking awkward at the mic,
Speaker 1: the crowd cheers as he kicks an inaugural ball, and
Speaker 1: stiffly walks off the field. His methods were not always
Speaker 1: so altruistic. His strategy was plata oplomo silver or lead,
Speaker 1: accept the bribe, or be dead. It said that Pablo
Speaker 1: Scobad once ordered the assassination of a referee, plus a
Speaker 1: sort of judges, politicians, over five hundred policemen, and thousands
Speaker 1: of rival cartel members. As Pablo was taking over the
Speaker 1: global drug trade, Nasonal was emerging on the international stage
Speaker 1: and joined the Nacional team at age twenty. Within a
Speaker 1: year he was playing for the national team. His club
Speaker 1: coach also managed the Colombian team, and this scored his
Speaker 1: only goal for Colombia against England at Wembley Stadium. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, Nasonald was plowing forward in the COEs,
Speaker 1: the competition of all the best club teams in South America.
Speaker 1: No Colombian team had ever won it, and in the
Speaker 1: cartel quarterfinal, Nacional scraped past Me and Narios. The final
Speaker 1: was Nacional versus Paraguayan club Olympia. Before the match, rumor
Speaker 1: has it that the Olympia president got a message from
Speaker 1: the Cartel Nacional champions or no one leaves the stadium alive.
Speaker 1: In the penalty shootout and scored first. The honey goalkeeper
Speaker 1: scored one and saved four in Naional one. But that team,
Speaker 1: you know, that I Lit Nacional team has just gone
Speaker 1: into history as one of the greatest South American club
Speaker 1: teams that ever was. They had Andres go in in
Speaker 1: the middle of the defense as well, this tower and
Speaker 1: figure who as we all know, mate a very tragic end.
Speaker 1: Five years later, after the United States woke up, the
Speaker 1: players went to Pablos Cobards Range to celebrate and pick
Speaker 1: up their bonuses. Using the core of his nationality, team
Speaker 1: coach led Colombia into a new era. They made it
Speaker 1: to the round of sixteen at the World Cup. And
Speaker 1: so this guy, Francisco Maturano, the culture of that age,
Speaker 1: he comes in and he says, look, we're not going
Speaker 1: to beat Argentina Brazil by fouling them, by spoiling You know,
Speaker 1: we're Colombians. We love, we love to have fun, we
Speaker 1: love to just show you artery cell So we're going
Speaker 1: to do that on the pitch. And it might not
Speaker 1: have ended in Troy phase but it was probably the
Speaker 1: closest that Columbias felt to their national team because it
Speaker 1: was just reflecting what this country was about. Meanwhile, Bablos
Speaker 1: Cobard pumped out enough silver and lead to get a
Speaker 1: law changed so that Columbia would no longer extradite people
Speaker 1: to the United States, and then came the infamous surrender.
Speaker 1: Babulos Cobard turned himself into Columbian authorities on the condition
Speaker 1: that he could build his own prison in managing that
Speaker 1: became known as more a mansion in a prison, which
Speaker 1: came equipped with its own soccer field. Babulos cobad would
Speaker 1: fly in elite players for luxurious friendlies. Then he would
Speaker 1: bet on the outcome with other drug kingpins. They'd all
Speaker 1: go and you don't say no to Pablos Cobard. Reneita
Speaker 1: talked openly to journalists he never hit his relationship with
Speaker 1: Bablos Cobada, but on this was much more uncomfortable with
Speaker 1: the situation. Dio Banadona went once he got a huge
Speaker 1: fee to play in the friendly and he had no
Speaker 1: idea who Barlos Cobada was at the time. They played
Speaker 1: the match and then partied through the night. Madethona wasn't
Speaker 1: playing on the day Columbia beat Argentina five nil. He
Speaker 1: had failed a drug test and couldn't play, but he
Speaker 1: was in the stands applauding. In the fallout of the match,
Speaker 1: Mathona rejoined Argentina from his drug band to revive its
Speaker 1: chances in the World Cup. Back in Colombia, dozens were
Speaker 1: killed in the joyous celebrations. Columbia at the time had
Speaker 1: the highest rate of violence anywhere in the world. Cartel's
Speaker 1: assassinated politicians and the military hunted down drug traffickers. I
Speaker 1: have to mention members of the farc and paramilitaries. There
Speaker 1: was a tug of war happening between the government and
Speaker 1: the cartels over the future of Columbia itself, and frequently
Speaker 1: they were using soccer as the rope. It was the
Speaker 1: one thing that everyone agreed on. Then President showed up
Speaker 1: to every match. Barbaros Goat tuned in religiously via radio,
Speaker 1: even while on the run after he fled his luxurious
Speaker 1: prison that he built for himself. Stuck in the middle
Speaker 1: of this bloody contest over a nation was a sweet
Speaker 1: kid with a flu fee Mullet, nicknamed the Gentleman of Football.
Speaker 1: More about what happened next after the break? How did
Speaker 1: become the gentleman of football? But like all great stories,
Speaker 1: let's go back to his childhood and the nest was
Speaker 1: a well off kid, the son of a banker. He
Speaker 1: attended private Catholic schools. Even as an adult. It said
Speaker 1: that he read the Bible every day. He kept two
Speaker 1: bookmarks in it, one a picture of his mom and
Speaker 1: a picture of his fiance. He and his fiance had
Speaker 1: plans to get married a few after the World Cup.
Speaker 1: Former teammates described on Today says beloved by everyone, the
Speaker 1: kind of guy you want around on those long, dreary
Speaker 1: nights on international travel. And the This was publicly shy,
Speaker 1: but hugely popular. He was in a bunch of ads
Speaker 1: ahead of the World Cup. It's kind of jarring knowing
Speaker 1: what's going to happen next. The world was full of
Speaker 1: buoyant commercial cheer for the ninety four World Cup in
Speaker 1: the good Old US of a three hundred thousand fans
Speaker 1: visited from abroad. About three point five million people packed
Speaker 1: stadiums to ent capacity and booked half a million hotel rooms.
Speaker 1: Snickers got their logo in front of two billion viewers
Speaker 1: on TV imported beer cells jumped by over three. ABC
Speaker 1: helpfully explained what exactly this whole soccer thing was. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think a lot of people are still
Speaker 1: confused about how this tournament works. Temporary Ted Who's a Striker?
Speaker 1: The cartoon dog mascot for the tournament became a surprise
Speaker 1: hit from a novelty shop in Texas. At the opening ceremonies,
Speaker 1: trapes around with Whitney Houston and Bill Clinton gave a
Speaker 1: speech Let it do, Donaldan United excited, honored to quite
Speaker 1: hug So that's magnificent, Donald Brighton, Diana Ross missed the
Speaker 1: penalty and the whole goal split in half. Back in Colombia,
Speaker 1: things were considerably less cheery. Bablos Cobad had fled the
Speaker 1: prison he built for himself. The Colombian government wanted to
Speaker 1: move him to a real prison, and instead he ducked
Speaker 1: out in the middle of the night and was living
Speaker 1: on the lamb for two years, and he had a
Speaker 1: target on his back. The military and a bunch of
Speaker 1: vigilantes financed by the Cali cartel hunted down Pablo Scbad.
Speaker 1: These vigilantes came to be known as los pepes as
Speaker 1: in they were mostly cartel members bribed to turn on
Speaker 1: Bablo months before the World Cup. Bablos Coat was gunned
Speaker 1: down on a medicine rooftop a day after his forty
Speaker 1: four birthday. Rival factions fought to fill the power vacuum.
Speaker 1: There were no rules. The country descended into chaos. Reneita
Speaker 1: got involved in the ransom, paid for a cartel kidnapping,
Speaker 1: and spent seven months in jail. He was excluded from
Speaker 1: the World Cup squad. Motorcyclists kidnapped the four year old
Speaker 1: son of Columbia defender Luis ra from outside his home
Speaker 1: in medhin They returned the kid to a church the
Speaker 1: next day. All of this was taking a toll on
Speaker 1: Columbia's national team as they prepared for their opening match
Speaker 1: in the World Cup against Romani June eighth, Group A.
Speaker 1: They met at the Rose Bowl and things didn't go well.
Speaker 1: For a vast sea of nine spectators. What does a
Speaker 1: vintage Romania side overcame Columbia and the group staying. Columbia's
Speaker 1: backup goalkeeper Oscar Cordova didn't even see the ball coming.
Speaker 1: He didn't look great on any of the three goals
Speaker 1: scored during that match, but he looked especially bad on
Speaker 1: this one. After a brilliant qualifying campaign and expectations were
Speaker 1: sky high, they crashed and burned in their opening match.
Speaker 1: The first half carried Romania to a three wong win
Speaker 1: over Columbia, and that's when the death threats came rolling.
Speaker 1: In some context, the players weren't the only ones that
Speaker 1: had their asses on the line during the World Cup.
Speaker 1: It wasn't your run of the mill World Cup steaks.
Speaker 1: Drug syndicates had bet millions on Columbia. Columbia's assistant coach
Speaker 1: was a guy named Ernan Dario Gomes. His brother was
Speaker 1: Garril Barba Comes, a starting midfielder on the team. The
Speaker 1: facts was sent to the Fullerton hotel that's said that
Speaker 1: if Barabas started, they would murder Barabas, Barabas's family, coach,
Speaker 1: Matana's family, and the rest of the squad. The TVs
Speaker 1: in their hotel rooms showed a similar message. Marta showed
Speaker 1: up to a team meeting crying, what could he do
Speaker 1: forward if Austino Asprilla called his family and told them
Speaker 1: to hide. Chantra, the defender, whose four year old son
Speaker 1: was kidnapped, got the news that his brother had died
Speaker 1: in a car crash. He was despondent. He wanted to
Speaker 1: give up and go home, Andres go out of stayed
Speaker 1: up with Aria all night, comforting him the country needs you,
Speaker 1: and that I told his friend problems off the field,
Speaker 1: and you know, that whole Columbia team, especially in NTO,
Speaker 1: and we didn't necessarily know it at the time, and
Speaker 1: it all came out after with you know, death threats
Speaker 1: and the cartel, I mean, and all of this stuff,
Speaker 1: and obviously with Andres Escobar and all that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that happened, that team was knee deep in it.
Speaker 1: This is Alexei Lawless. He played for the United States
Speaker 1: in the next game against Columbia with his scraggly goatee
Speaker 1: and uncombed ginger main and iconic Denham jersey. Now Alexei
Speaker 1: works for Fox Sports. Barabbas was dropped in the middle
Speaker 1: of the tournament. He left the team and never played
Speaker 1: for Columbia again. Shaking teammates made the trek up to
Speaker 1: Pasadena to play the hosting United States June twenty world
Speaker 1: the world than six nine fans showed up to the
Speaker 1: Columbia USA game. To the outside world, Columbia was still
Speaker 1: a favorite to win the World Cup, the United States
Speaker 1: had just a few pros playing in far flung leagues.
Speaker 1: Columbia's star striker was Faustino Esparriga wonder to mark him,
Speaker 1: the Americans surprisingly turned to Fernando cRIO, a thirty seven
Speaker 1: year old who hadn't played a match in months. Columbia
Speaker 1: dominated the opening spell, just pepper to the American goal
Speaker 1: with shots. This one looked like it could get ugly,
Speaker 1: until it got ugly in a very different way. Cops
Speaker 1: look at this duties the clingly with a goal from
Speaker 1: Columbia's goalkeeper, Cordova's already moving to where the cross will go.
Speaker 1: When it's redirected path him. He arcs backward and falls
Speaker 1: over like he's been shot. In the feed, you can
Speaker 1: see Andresco out of stand up. He's got his hands
Speaker 1: on his hips, head hung low. He doesn't look defeated,
Speaker 1: just sort of a grim acceptance, ready to get on
Speaker 1: with the game with life on the go on. The
Speaker 1: United States reached Colombia at halftime, subbed off as pretty yet,
Speaker 1: Lavico said quote, he should be ashamed of himself. Not
Speaker 1: only did he not play well, he didn't even try.
Speaker 1: Maturana said later he would have subbed out all eleven
Speaker 1: players if he could have more about what happened next
Speaker 1: after the break second half, send it on the school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the American dream is alive and well any steward makes
Speaker 1: it true now on there on the way to the
Speaker 1: second round, a little Laalencia scored Columbia's only goal in
Speaker 1: the ninety minute, but it wasn't enough. In hindsight, it's
Speaker 1: eerie watching the American people celebrating on the streets. Columbia
Speaker 1: losing to the US and ninety four was perhaps the
Speaker 1: biggest upset in World Cup history. The American headlines read
Speaker 1: the Miracle on Grass. The US was through to the
Speaker 1: knockout rounds. Columbia, on the other hand, was out. The
Speaker 1: newspaper La Prinza went with the headline humiliated by the
Speaker 1: United States, said his team couldn't have played so poorly,
Speaker 1: even on purpose. Apa got defensive into old reporters. It's
Speaker 1: not the end of the world, maybe, but it was
Speaker 1: the end of a lot of things. Drug traffickers lost
Speaker 1: millions in bets on Columbia. Martano resigned after receiving bomb
Speaker 1: threats at his house and fled Columbia and none Dais
Speaker 1: the assistant coach turned down the head coaching job. He
Speaker 1: said he simply didn't want it anymore. One could understand why.
Speaker 1: And his family had vacation plans. They were headed to
Speaker 1: America and asked Andres to join A Columbia radio station
Speaker 1: asked Andres to do the commentary for the rest of
Speaker 1: the World Cup. He declined both invitations. He went back home.
Speaker 1: He thought it was important to show his face in Colombia.
Speaker 1: This is audio from the last interview he gave when
Speaker 1: the cancer. In the footage, he looked down and then
Speaker 1: into the middle distance. He blinks, there's nothing much more
Speaker 1: to say. He's defeated, but we'll get on with his life.
Speaker 1: Two days later, Andreescobad was murdered. On the night of
Speaker 1: his death, and this left his fiance at home to
Speaker 1: go out with some friends and ended up at a
Speaker 1: club called and This was drinking and he gets into
Speaker 1: a verbal scuffle with some people. At three am, he
Speaker 1: leaves with his friends to go get some food. And
Speaker 1: this was in the car in the parking lot. When
Speaker 1: three people approached, they shot him six or twelve times,
Speaker 1: depending on the report. Someone told the local radio station
Speaker 1: that they heard one of the shooters say thanks for
Speaker 1: the alto. The group yelled goal after each shot. It's
Speaker 1: unlikely they killed him this explicitly for the own goal.
Speaker 1: We don't know for or what they were arguing about,
Speaker 1: and Rancisco Bad died from his wounds on the way
Speaker 1: to the hospital trying to squeeze his friend's hand. Two
Speaker 1: of the gunmen were identified as the Rayon brothers, Juan
Speaker 1: drug traffickers slash car dealers. They've been members of Los
Speaker 1: Pepies and had helped hunt down Baos Colada when authorities
Speaker 1: arrested the Vallons, they also confiscated fifty pounds of cocaine,
Speaker 1: two revolvers, and a submachine gun. The Rayons then paid
Speaker 1: off the prosecutors. Their drivers slash bodyguard took the fall
Speaker 1: and confessed. He was sentenced to forty three years in prison,
Speaker 1: but got out after eleven for good behavior. The Yon
Speaker 1: brothers went free. On July. Colombian players started getting calls
Speaker 1: early in the morning saying and was dead. Asprilla didn't
Speaker 1: really believe it until he saw the midday news. On
Speaker 1: June twenty second, in Pasadena's Rose Bowl, the US wanted
Speaker 1: to one game, at which Columbia defender Andres Escobar accidentally
Speaker 1: kicked the ball into his own net. Columbia, one of
Speaker 1: the favorites going in, was eliminated in the first round.
Speaker 1: The team returned home on Wednesday to anonymous threats, threats
Speaker 1: that were carried out may the Ian city officials instituted
Speaker 1: a twenty four hour alcohol band. The members of the
Speaker 1: Columbia team were signed additional bodyguards, and then Cisco about
Speaker 1: his body lay in state at an open colosseum. The
Speaker 1: next day. Ten thousand people attended the funeral, including the
Speaker 1: President of Colombia and the mayor of Medain. Thousands walked
Speaker 1: with the casket ten miles to the cemetery. Back in
Speaker 1: the United States, the knockout rounds of the World Cup
Speaker 1: we're starting. They held a moment of silence before the
Speaker 1: next two matches to complete. You're not respect for life,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. It's just a game, you know, and
Speaker 1: of course, you know at this level that gets kind
Speaker 1: of blurred. That's a very young Alexei Lawalas on Sports Center.
Speaker 1: It was ten days between the own goal and Andranciscobata's murder.
Speaker 1: The Best Soccer Podcast in the World is a production
Speaker 1: of exile content Studios in partnership with I Hearts Michael
Speaker 1: Duda podcast Network and is hosted by me Nando Vila.
Speaker 1: The show is produced by Anna save Octavio and Zach
Speaker 1: Lee Rigg, written by Zach Lee Rigg. Production assistants by
Speaker 1: Stella and Our executive producers are Isaac Lee Rose Reed
Speaker 1: and myself Nando Vila. Our executive producers at I Heart
Speaker 1: are Giselle Vances and Arlene Santana. Sound designed by Ula Mendoza.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by lu j Special thanks to
Speaker 1: all the voices who participated in this episode Alexei Laalas,
Speaker 1: Garl Marcotti and Daniel Edwards. For more podcasts, listen to
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows,