By Andrew Warshaw
July 2 – Twenty years after the darkest episode in their country’s footballing history, a Twitter campaign has been launched to mark today’s anniversary of the death of Andres Escobar, the Colombian defender tragically gunned down for scoring an own goal in a World Cup group match against the United States.
Escobar’s death in 1994 was widely blamed on Colombia’s drug barons at losing a gambling fortune as a result of the country’s World Cup exit and thousands of fans are attending memorial services to pay tribute to the former Atletico Madrid international as the country prepares for its first ever World Cup quarterfinal on Friday.
Escobar, 27, had played 50 times for his country and the 1994 World Cup was his second after being in the squad in Italy four years earlier. In their second match, against the hosts, Escobar inadvertently steered a cross into his own net for the first goal in a 2-1 defeat. Highly fancied Colombia were out though they beat Switzerland 2-0 in their final group game.
Ten days later, Escobar, known as ‘El Caballero del Futbol’ or ‘The Gentleman of Football’, went to a discotheque in Medellin and was gunned down in a hail of bullets though the motive for the killing has never been clearly established. Some reports said the gunman shouted “Goooool!” as he fired. More than 120,000 lined the streets for his funeral.
“We dedicate this triumph to Andres Escobar,” one fan said on Twitter after Colombia’s victory over Uruguay that set up Friday’s quarter final against hosts Brazil.
“Andres Escobar is living through this team,” added another in a flurry of social media activity. Some Colombian fans in Brazil have been carrying Escobar’s photo to games as they watched their team march into the quarter finals with four wins out of four. And Escobar’s brother, Santiago, has urged arguably the most inventive team so far to keep going in his honour when they meet hosts Brazil in Friday’s south American showdown.
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