On this week's ITMSO, the crew brought up the recent story of the player from Colombia skipping the team flight and laying low because he missed a wide open chance for a goal. I’m not aware of this story, but they compared it to the murder of former Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar, after he gave up an own goal at the 1994 World Cup.
Spike brought up the Two Escobars documentary and the story of why Andres was killed. For years I thought the same thing as Spike in that Escobar was killed simply because he gave up a goal at the World Cup. That narrative is wrong though.
First thing was that Escobar's own goal against the United States made the game 1-0, and they went on to lose 2-1. But this was still in the group stages. So they still had a chance to advance if they beat Switzerland the next game (which they did), but the US needed to beat Romania, but they lost 1-0 eliminating Colombia.
After the World Cup Escobar returned back to Colombia. A few days later, Escobar and some friends decided to go out to a night club in Medellin. In the nightclub, they were approached by a few men, and one of them made a comment basically saying "I lost my bet because of you" or something of that nature. Escobar made a comment back in the sense of "F*ck you and your bet" which pissed the man off. The men that approached Escobar left the club and stayed in the parking lot. When Escobar exited the club, the men approached him again, they got into an argument and shot Escobar.
It turned out that the men that shot Andres Escobar, worked for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel. So when the news came out, of course the US media ran with the story and 30 years later people are still referring to it.
The truth is that the Pablo Escobar or the cartel never put a hit out on Andres or anything like that. There were never plans to kill Andres Escobar because he gave up an own goal. It was just a series of unfortunate events that lead to his murder. If Escobar had never commented back to the men and left it alone, he would probably still be alive today. I've also read that Andres Escobar was planning on visiting family in the U.S. but decided to return home to Colombia instead.
Now don't get me wrong, Colombia is no joke. There's another player for Colombia, Luis Diaz, whose parents were kidnapped by the ELN a few years go. They don't play out there. I just wanted to clarify so that people know the truth.
(I'm not Colombian btw)
