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| Andres Escobar of Colombia reacts after scoring an own goal during a match against the U.S. in the 1994 World Cup. |
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| Andres Escobar`s fatal goal |
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| Andres Escobar |
As it dipped back to the turf, the ball represented the pride and hope of Colombia and the United States, the two countries involved in that World Cup match.
Ultimately, it bore the despair of one of the most tragic moments in sports history.
Harkes had intended the pass for a teammate streaking toward the goal. Instead, it was intercepted by Colombian defender Andres Escobar, whose sliding deflection wrong-footed his goalkeeper and went into the net.
The goal sent the United States on its way to a stunning 2-1 victory over the mighty pre-tournament favorites.
It sent Escobar’s country reeling, a frenzy that less than two weeks later resulted in his murder in the street outside a Colombian nightclub.
“Sometimes the sport transcends everything politically, culturally,” Harkes said Monday by phone from South Africa. “Everything.”
For one month every four years, that becomes especially evident in ways that affect a game, a country and even a life.
The victory thrust soccer in the United States to the forefront.
“We were doing ‘Good Morning America’ and ‘Nightline’ with Ted Koppel,” said Tab Ramos, who grew up in Harrison and was a midfielder on the 1994 team. “It became a crazy time after that result.”
Said Harkes: “We had accomplished the unthinkable at that time.”
But for the Colombians, the own goal had a disastrous and chilling effect. The 27-year-old Escobar, one of his country’s greatest players and captain for the 1994 national team, was held accountable for the loss.
Colombia failed to make it out of the group stage of the World Cup, its first in 28 years. Ten days after the loss to the U.S., Escobar was shot dead outside a nightclub in Medellin, Colombia, the violence-stained city where he grew up, cultivated a love for the game on its rugged streets and played for Athletico Nacional, a team once owned by infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar, no relation to the player.
Andres Escobar’s death is still cloaked in mysterious circumstances, which ESPN attempts to unravel in its documentary “The Two Escobars” that airs tonight at 9. Humberto Castro Munoz, a bodyguard for members of a powerful Colombian cartel, was charged with Escobar’s murder but was released in 2005, having served just 11 years of a 43-year sentence. Three other accomplices that night were not charged.
Though it was never confirmed that the dispute at the nightclub began over Escobar’s goal, witnesses told police that the last words Escobar heard before his death were, “Thanks for the own goal.”
Even to this day, Harkes knows he will always be tied to Escobar — his mistake, his death.
“The word is connection, and it’s an emotional one,” said Harkes, a Kearny native who is part of ESPN’s coverage of the World Cup.
“The game itself is built on emotions — the highs and lows of the game, pride and passion and heartbreak. That
was a case of my heart sinking to the bottom. My first thought was for his family. It was a hard thing to comprehend at first.”
Harkes heard of Escobar’s death on July 2, hours after the shooting outside the El Indio nightclub.
“It was a sad day,” Harkes said. “I remember coming out to training with the U.S. team. Just as I was coming out there, I had a few reporters in my face straight away asking about Escobar being shot and killed. I was taken aback, taken completely off-guard.”
Even now, Harkes said the memory of Escobar and the play come flooding back, just like past triumphs or regrets.
“You think about when it’s soccer, when it’s own goals, when it’s the World Cup — anything that has a connection,” Harkes said. “You say you try not to, because its part of a play, but it’s a tragic event for his family. That’s just humanity.”
Escobar and his teammates had received death threats prior to the U.S. game, having earlier lost their first game of the tournament. After the goal, the team was warned to stay off the streets amid the mounting disappointment in Colombia. Escobar had written an editorial in the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo expressing his regret for the goal but ending with the words, “See you soon, because life doesn’t end here.”
For those involved in the play — Harkes, Ramos, Escobar’s teammates — life went on. More than anything, the lesson of a game taken too far and the memory of a life cut too short have lived on.
“People would tell me, you can’t control what happens off the field,” Harkes said. “Of course you understand that, but it becomes such an issue dealing with personal lives. For years and years, you don’t know what it was attributed to.
“It’s years and years that have gone by since, but you always think about it. I do.”
The mistake had been fleet, but no one knew how fatal it would be. It was a slip of the mind, a touch of the foot and, suddenly, instead of blocking the ball, Andres Escobar propelled it past his own team's goalie and into Colombia's net. The defensive error gave the U.S. soccer team a 1-0 lead, and eventually a surprise 2-1 victory at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on June 22. For Escobar and the heavily favored Colombians, it led to World Cup elimination and, in the early morning hours near Medellin last Saturday, murder.
Escobar had been on the town with friends, carousing at a roadside dance bar called Restaurante el Indio, when three men and a woman accosted him at 3:30 a.m. They hurled insults at him for his slipup at the World Cup. When he flung back epithets of his own, two of the men drew handguns. "All of a sudden, we heard gunfire, and then Escobar was on the ground, groaning and clutching his chest," said Jorge Arango, a witness. Escobar had been shot 12 times. One of the assailants reportedly said, "Thanks for the auto-goal, you son of a bitch." The killers then took off in a Toyota pickup truck. Escobar was pronounced dead 45 minutes later.
Colombian authorities believe the killing had been planned. The owner of the getaway truck told police that the assassins had robbed him of the vehicle an hour before the murder, holding him hostage at an isolated point on the road to the Medellin airport. They reportedly told him they were keeping him for two hours to prevent him from alerting the police "until it was all over." Said a police official: "This wasn't spontaneous violence. It was an execution."
As Colombians reacted with shock, other members of the national team were assigned bodyguards. "Much to our disgrace, Andres will go down in posterity as the symbol of the internecine violence that remains the country's greatest challenge," said Hernan Dario Gomez, an assistant coach of the team.
A cloud has always gathered around Colombia's soccer mania. Since Colombia's elimination two weeks ago, the team had received several anonymous threats. In 1989 a referee was killed, apparently by a group of gamblers linked to drug traffickers. This year there had been rumors, none substantiated, that some of the country's drug lords had wagered heavily against the national team. Before the U.S. game, defensive back Jaime Gabriel Gomez withdrew from play after his family received death threats.
Beyond Colombia, the death cast a further pall on the World Cup, which had been receiving a modest but heartening welcome in the U.S. A moment of silence preceded the Germany-Belgium game in Chicago. Said Sepp Blatter, head of soccer's governing body: "If something happens by accident, you can say it was the will of God. But when people deliberately shoot and kill somebody because he made a mistake in the game, something is wrong."
(Time Magazine Monday, July 11, 1994)
Escobar's funeral was attended by over 120,000 people. Every year people honor Escobar by bringing photographs of him to matches. In July 2002, the city of Medellín unveiled a statue in honor of his memory.
Humberto Castro Muñoz, a bodyguard for members of a powerful Colombian cartel, confessed to killing Escobar. Muñoz also worked as a driver for Peter David and Juan Santiago Gallon Henao, who allegedly bet heavily on the Colombian team and was upset at having lost. He was found guilty of Escobar's murder in June 1995. He was sentenced to 43 years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to 26 years because of his submitting to the ruling penal code in 2001. Humberto was released on good behavior due to further reductions from prison work and study in 2005 after serving approximately 11 years. His three accomplices were not charged.
In 2009 and 2010 ESPN broadcast 30 for 30, a series of sports-themed documentaries timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the network. The Two Escobars, by directors Jeff and Michael Zimbalist, looked back at Colombia's World Cup run and the relationship of association football and the country's criminal gangs – notably the Medellín Cartel run by Pablo Escobar.
It is suggested in the programme that, had Pablo Escobar (no relation to Andrés) still been alive, the Gallon Brothers would not have targeted Andrés Escobar, as it was widely known that Pablo Escobar was a fervent supporter of the Colombian national football team and was a friend of all the players on the national team. Escobar had personally funded the construction of many of the football fields that exist in the poorer regions of Medellín and had indirectly funded many of the costs associated with training the Colombian players and preparing the national team for international play. The players visited him in prison prior to beginning their World Cup qualifying run.
It is also suggested in the programme that the murder was not an execution, but merely a random encounter in a club parking lot – an argument between men fueled by alcohol, anger, and ego.
There are also allegations that the Gallon Brothers bribed the Prosecutor's Office to redirect the investigation towards Muñoz as the triggerman - and the Prosecutor's Office contends that Muñoz was simply following orders from the Gallon Brothers, but prosecutors lacked credible evidence to convict them. Cascardo believes that the accusation of the Gallon Brothers' bribery of government officials is supported by the fact that Muñoz killed a national celebrity and only received 11 years in prison as punishment. Many of the Colombian national team players quit playing football after the murder.
- Source:
- 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Escobar
- 2. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981082,00.html
- 3. http://www.nj.com/soccer-news/index.ssf/2010/06/andres_escobars_own_goal_murde.html
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