A not-so-funny joke is repeated every World Cup season since 1994 about players who made mistakes during games by people who only read sports headlines. “That guy better be careful. He might go home and get killed.” The people making this joke don’t know who it was that was murdered (Andrés Escobar) or what country he was from (Colombia). They were questions that I, myself, kept forgetting to ask.
A relative new comer to international soccer competitions, I recently asked my husband “whatever happened to the Colombian national team?” I remember footage of their bright uniforms, colorful play and wild hair. My questions were soon answered by the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary called The Two Escobars directed by Jeff and Michael Zimbalist.
The Two Escobars follows the rapid rise and demise of the Colombian national soccer team in the 80’s and 90’s through the lives of its hero – Andrés Escobar and its patron – Pablo Escobar. This documentary has all the elements of classic story telling: complex characters, rags to riches stardom and good versus evil. The interviews with former players, family members and politicians are compelling in both content and composition. The archival footage is vast. It almost seems as if the past footage was shot with the knowledge that this documentary would one day be produced. Not once did I think “they don’t have anything to cover this with.”
Pablo Escobar is depicted as a modern day Robin Hood – a poor boy that made riches by becoming a drug lord but sharing his ill-begotten wealth with poor citizens from Colombia. He reconstructed homes in a fire ravaged barrio and built soccer fields for neighborhoods and schools. It was his sponsorship of one of the national teams that allowed them to jettisons them to the top ranks of world soccer. While watching this film, I was rooting for him as much as I was rooting against him.
Andrés Escobar was a member of that team. He was uncomfortable with the drug connections but relished being a role model for young people. He became the team captain and used his money and position to help at-risk youth. At a time when Colombia was suffering from the highest murder rate in the world, he became a symbol of hope and achievement. It was easy to root for Andrés.
When the demise of both Escobars unfolds, we understand why. For Pablo, it wasn’t just the Colombian government with the help of the Americans that finally got the best of him. He was killed by the only person who could kill him, a former friend and rival drug lord. And it wasn’t just an angry fan that killed Andrés after his own-goal that knocked the Colombian team out of the world cup. It was a thug from the same rival gang that killed Pablo – a thug with a mammoth machismo attitude and perhaps too much to drink. With the death of the two Escobars, Colombian soccer sunk back into oblivion even more quickly than it had risen.
In the end, The Two Escobars not only taught me about Colombian soccer and history but reminded me that there are at least three sides to every story, that good is not always all good and that evil is not always without morality. It is ultimately a sad story and supremely human. Mostly, it pointed out that any death, but especially that of someone who held the hopes and dreams of his country, is just not good fodder for a joke.
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