Part of ESPN’s outstanding 30 for 30 series, Jeff and Michael Zimbalist’s 2010 documentary The Two Escobars is a must-see of the genre chronicling the parallel fates of two Colombian men who shared the same surname and city of residence, Medellin, yet were unrelated.
Mounting a cocaine empire that made him one of the world’s richest men in the 1980’s, Pablo Escobar’s reign at the top of the drugs trade came to an abrupt end in early December 1993 when the Search Bloc special operations unit of Colombia’s national police, with backing from the CIA, killed him on the rooftops of the Los Olivios suburb’s middle class housing in a bloody shootout.
Andrés Escobar, an Atletico Nacional defender known as “The Gentleman”, was guilty only of scoring the own goal against the hosts at USA ’94 that sealed his country’s exit from the tournament but was gunned down in Medellin just five days after returning from international duty in the small hours of July 2.
Ironically, it has been claimed that were Don Pablo still around at the time, Andrés would have come out of the whole affair unscathed due to the former’s love of their homeland’s national team. Two decades later however, due to Colombia’s cruel last 16 exit in Russia at the hands of the English on Tuesday evening, fears that history is to repeat itself have surfaced after those that failed to put penalties past Jordan Pickford in the shoot out that would have granted passage to the quarter finals have allegedly already received threats against their lives.
This follows the news that Carlos Sanchez, who was sent off a mere three minutes into Colombia’s opening tie against Japan that ended in a 2-1 defeat for Los Cafeteros, had also been warned that his days were numbered, which forced Andrés’ brother Sachi to speak out and lament that these developments had showed him “that nothing good came out of” his sibling’s passing as he demanded calm from the public.
In receiving hateful messages and comments just minutes after defeat, Carlos Bacca and Mateus Uribe now join Sanchez, who was also responsible for the penalty that allowed Harry Kane to put the Three Lions ahead, upon being told they were “dead”, should take the easy way out by committing suicide, and must never return to their South American country.
“Die Carlos Bacca. Son of a whore. Nobody wants you here [in Colombia], gonorrhea. To this country you don’t return” warned David Castadena on Twitter. “I hate you Carlos Bacca. I hate everything of you. I hate your discipline, your animal surname and your ass’ game. You are worse that cancer, If you have cancer at least you can go to a doctor and discover what you have. Carlos Bacca get depressed and commit suicide to stop living this agony.” raged HumorFPCosky.
Wilson Gomes informed Uribe that he should “Leave the country because the cartels will eat you alive you DISGRACE.” but was told his comments were “stupid” by Cristhian Moreno before being called an “arsehole” by David Andres Niño, which thankfully echoes the general consensus around Colombia that, as much as the world loves the beautiful game, football is not worth losing one’s life over.
For their correspondence, those that were vocal with their threats will automatically be investigated by the authorities, as is compulsory now whenever players are the recipients of such actions in light of Andrés Escobar’s murder.
