Totally Extra: the rise and fall of Colombia in the 90s

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0:59Totally Extra. It's our Slow Cooker Saturday Special Edition. And on the menu today, Los Cafeteros, Colombia in the 1990s. Like the coffee their name evokes, theirs is a tale that involves lots of grounds, is exhilarating in cups, but also dark and bitter. From the scorpion kicks to the escobards, from Medellin to the Monumental, a truly remarkable tale in today's Totally Extra.

1:57Unbelievable, unbelievable. morning good morning to you straight afternoon evening or whatever time you happen to be listening to this listener david limb is a listener who says i come for the football i stay for the food chat it's a common thing this duncan actually david says i look forward to the totally food show which is certainly a pitch have you had an especially good meal recently duncan um not to you next, Luis. I'll tell you where I did go the other day, which is very good. Very Instagram-coded, but Cafe Mondo in Camberwell. Very good sandwiches. There you go. If you're in Camberwell...

2:35Then they'd be pretty run-of-the-mill, but for South London... Well, let's hear it from Luis. What's the greatest sandwich you've had recently? Well, sandwich. Well, actually, you'd have to go to Miami for that. Go to the Cuban district. New York is good. you have to go to Jackson Heights again. But I would say, you know, a good butifarra, which is a Peruvian sandwich that you can get in Queens. I like that one. All right. Okay. What about Atlanta, Felipe? Well, I'll tell you this. This is very timely. Yesterday I had lunch with a colleague here in Atlanta, and I had what is considered the best hamburger in Atlanta.

3:14Oh. Yes. Yes, from a spot called Holman & Finch. They opened a few years ago, And they used to only serve like 30 hamburgers a night. So it's very exclusive. And now they've opened a few spots, more of a sit-down restaurant. Very good. Very tasty. Okay. I like this kind of limited edition, strictly numbered hamburgers thing. There's one in West London that does only 10 a day. Luis, have you been to Raoul's, which is kind of on the outskirts of the village? They used to do a very limited numbers burger, which is well worth getting in early for. Yeah, I'll tell you a quick funny story about Raoul's.

3:48So I was, you know, working in a quick, in a coffee shop down there, back way, way back in the day. And I'm running, I'm late, I'm late. And I just bump into somebody and I apologize. And it's Leonardo DiCaprio because they were filming The Departed. No way. Oh my gosh, what a film. It was the Jack Nicholson scene, you know, when he's like, that rat, that scene. All right. Has anyone ever bumped into you and then subsequently reenacted one of your movie scenes, Luis? I think, I think Felipe. In Miami, he bumped into me and he was like, it's that Peruvian from Mutant Chronicles. No, nobody has done that, Jimbo.

4:24Nobody recognizes it. All right. Okay. Thank you so much for that. What was the name of the restaurant again in Atlanta, Felipe? Holman and Finch. Holman and Finch. Yes. Wow. Yes. Okay. One to keep in mind. Here's a message from Luis F. Hernan, who says, as a first-generation Colombian Brit born in the 80s, one of my first football memories is Freddy Rincon at Italian 90. Gold against West Germany, no doubt. Was it Wembley, says Luis, for the scorpion kick? So were you, Luis Miguel Echegaray. Yeah, it was the first time I ever attended to Wembley. Just immigrated to England from Peru then. And I remember my dad got us tickets and we went, took me out of school.

5:06Yeah, nothing happened in that game. Only the scorpion kick from René Guita. It was a very boring match, but that scorpion kick was ridiculous. Yeah, only one of the most iconic moments ever. Duncan. It was offside, wasn't it? I mean, that is the... That's why he did it. Yeah. I mean, I'd try it if I knew the ball was bad. But you were saying before we came into the studio that as a youngster in the playgrounds of your youth, you were Rene Higuita. Yeah, the 1990 World Cup was, I think, for people in the UK, well, England anyway, you know, very, a big moment. And I think, obviously, there was the England run to the semis, but there was so much about it and the René Higuita just captured my imagination so much that yeah I pretended to be him at lunchtime at school for going on like six or seven months but just just the sight of a goalkeeper basically playing as a central defender or even higher but I mean now now you see it in league one or league two and it causes many errors but then it was so so outlandish and so different and um yeah it opened my mind to different possibilities well Indeed, they were a team who opened so many minds and just a whole entourage as well that the fellow dressed as a bird who used to hang from the terraces.

6:22What was that about, Philippe? You know, I spoke with him recently when I went to Colombia in September of last year to cover Argentina against Colombia in a World Cup qualifier. And the story for The Athletic was like, this is the new modern South American rivalry, right? Like these two teams continue to meet in big games. the players are and the games are very competitive and so I met him I met this gentleman who in in 19 I believe it began before the 1990 World Cup but he dresses up as a very iconic bird in Colombia I guess similar to a giant hawk or an eagle and he used to be he used to be held by, I guess, friends of his and fans, random fans by a rope, and they would let him down and sort of imitate this guy flying.

7:12He later told me in Columbia, he's like, I can't do that anymore. The stadium officials don't let me do that. But he continues to be what is considered the number one fan of the Columbia national team, still goes to every game, still travels with the team, and still remains, I think, an iconic part of that brand. Incredible. Incredible. Incredible. Duncan, you have a quiz question for us that is Colombia related today. Yeah, so there's been, I don't know, about 30 Colombians in the Premier League. But only six of them have played more than 100 games. So it's a fairly simple quiz this week. Who are the six Colombians to play more than 100 games in the Premier League?

7:50Six Colombians have played more than 100 games, you said. Yeah. Briefly repeating the question. Yes. Who are they? Well, I guess I can get one or two, but that's actually not as simple as you make it sound. Oh, I can tell you one, definitely. All right, let's have one then. Well, obviously, I've got to begin with Juan Pablo Angel. Yeah, he's top on 175. Terrible penalty conversion rate, 50 % conversion rate of penalties in the Premier League. Right. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Okay. But a lot of games, so yeah, fair play. We'll come back and see the identity of the other five. At the end of today's show, which I'll be honest, before you know it, because we've got an extraordinary subject matter today, which is, as mentioned, that great Colombia team of the mid-90s.

8:36Today's almanac. There it goes. It's very much Colombia-centred. A lot of big Colombian anniversaries this week, Felipe. You've got 2nd of September, which is Tuesday, as we record. That was the birthday of arguably Colombia's greatest ever player, Carlos Valderrama. back in whatever that was. He's 64 now, so you do the math. Greatest ever player, would you say, Felipe? That is a very contentious debate in Colombia these days, and that's thanks to James Rodriguez and Radamel Falcao. I think when you talk about James Rodriguez, obviously his 2014 World Cup is, I think it's going to be very difficult to top for a Colombian.

9:20That performance, the golden boot, the player of the tournament, He should have won the player of the tournament, let's be honest. They went to Lionel Messi. But yeah, I think for me, Carlos Valderrama, he was my hero. He was my first hero growing up. And I still think he is among the best players ever, ever to be produced in Colombia. I put him in the top three. I think for me, he would be the top player. Who's the other one alongside James Rodriguez? It's Falcao. I think Falcao is, and for many in Colombia, Radamel Falcao is the best player ever to be producing. Just because of, you know, he at one point was the best, considered the best nine in the world.

9:59And for a goal scorer to come out of Colombia, to be a teenager at River Plate, to impress at River Plate in that, you know, in the years of when they were very, very good. And then to reach that pinnacle of his career at Atletico Madrid and really scoring for fun, he, for many, is probably the best player, all-around player that Colombia has produced. But again, there's an argument for James Rodriguez too. Fascinating. OK, on other anniversary news, the 5th of September, which is Friday of this week, do you know what that's the anniversary of Philippe? Oh, of course, of course. Going back to 1993, a quick story.

10:38I went to Columbia to stay. I begged my parents, I was 15, please send me to Columbia for a year. I want to live with my cousins. They're like my brothers. I sort of set up the pitch as I'll study in Columbia. I just wanted to play football. Let's be honest. I just wanted to play football. And I wanted to live that Colombian life of like following a national team, going to a stadium every Sunday. So yes, I arrived actually the 3rd of September that year to stay for an entire year, two days before the now famous 5-0 win over Argentina at the Estadio Monumental on September 5th? That game, the 5-0 win at that moment, to me, and when you look back and reflect, you know, definitely in that moment was the greatest victory that any South American team had ever done specifically over such a giant like Argentina.

11:31And, you know, I know that we're going to talk about it but I miss the environment that was going on in Colombia the fact that that happened was just a remarkable a remarkable achievement Faustino Apria who Newcastle United fans know played out of his mind in that game it was one of the greatest games one of the greatest victories to the point where every single Argentinian by the final whistle was standing up giving them a standing ovation yeah that's brilliant and out of his mind in the same sentence there quite a rare correct excellent also in anniversary news this week the 6th of september which is saturday is 30 years on if you're listening to it you know this year 2025 from rene higuita's scorpion kick which we've already done and it was amazing and he said he'd been keeping in his locker for years he practiced it waiting for the perfect moment people say everything in football is written until the crazy step out on the field and we invent new things to do and it's really caught on hasn't it you know what's you know what's great about that highlight if you go back and watch uh renee igita do the scorpion against england at wembley uh there's a moment after he does it where he sort of lifts his hand almost to what players do to apologize to a teammate like hey i didn't see you or my bad like he is that was still even though the players knew igita was capable of something like that.

12:55It wasn't well received at the time. So he does it and he's sort of looking at his teammates like, I know, I know, like you guys told me not to do this, but I did it anyway. So it's a great little highlight. He looks so special as well. He's dressed in these baggy tracksuit bottoms with the immense hair. And I mean, the look of that Columbia team was something that we're going to get onto, I'm sure, because there's a lot to talk about. So let's get underway with one of the most iconic and remarkable football teams the game has ever seen. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network.

13:46The Colombians were very confident. Pelle said they could win the cup. Aspira through the middle here. Aspira with the shots. Magnificent goal. Suddenly he's alive. This is Rink on. And he's gone. Rink on Colombia. And Escobar equalises for Colombia. Just look at their supporters. Yigita, the eccentric goalkeeper.

14:17Unreal.

14:20Balderrama much more than an extravagant hairstyle his passing was superb, his control too now what's Balderrama made of? we'll see if we've got one of the class performers of the World Cup or not now oh we have Colombia 5, Argentina 0 Colombia 5, Argentina 0 que partidazo, que victoria celebra lo colombiano

14:47So, Colombia were, for much of the world during the 90s, a source of frequent astonishment. Nobody looked like them, nobody played like them. We mentioned some of their names, legends like Valderrama, El Loco Higuita, Tino Esprilia, and the gentleman captain, Andres Escobar. Felipe, you were there in Colombia around this time. This was a team that, to the rest of the world, seemed to have risen almost out of nowhere. And to have them ranked at the top of the game, to have Colombia's name mentioned among kind of World Cup favorites, what did that mean? I think it was a source of immense stress when suddenly we saw Colombia as a favorite at a World Cup before that 1994 World Cup because they hadn't won anything.

15:31Colombia had been a team that was fighting among that fourth and third spot in South America behind Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay. They were always right there, getting to a Copa America semifinal, winning key games in World Cup qualifiers. But to suddenly be propelled as a favorite at a World Cup, I think most Colombians did not know how to grasp that. I think it was a bit too much for the country. But that team didn't come out of nowhere for us. This was the team that took Colombia back to a World Cup in 1990 for the first time since 1962. Back then, a lot of South Americans were not being sold and acquired by European clubs.

16:14So the national team was made up of players that played in Colombia. And you knew these players. You understood what they were about. And so the national team gradually gained, I think, more respect in South America, obviously leading up to that 1994 World Cup. What was so special about the football that they played? You know, it was a style. I think some of those of us that are in this strange world of football reporting, we talk so much about philosophy and identity. And to this day, it seems to be what we grasp onto when we really break down a team and how they play. Columbia was – Colombian football at the time and certainly with Carlos Valderrama at the head of this, they played a very distinct style.

16:58It was called el toque toque, which is really just like translates to toque, translates to touch. You know, you're getting touches. And it was very much like playing a rondo anywhere on the pitch. They built from the back before it was really in vogue. And that was because they had goalkeepers like Kikita that could play with their feet. And they defended with the ball. They wanted to keep the ball. And so it sort of melded into the culture of Colombia. The salsa, the cumbia music, the party atmosphere, I think, surrounded these players. And they played in a way where they felt like, we have to entertain.

17:39And they did. It became, I think, part of their brand to always entertain their fans. Yeah, on that, I mean, obviously, the Higuita at Wembley famous edition is the 1995 one we've talked about with the Scorpion kit. But there was actually a game in 1988 between them. And it's interesting for a few reasons. Firstly, Columbia get a draw, their first trip to Wembley, and Andreas Escobar scores the equaliser. A great header. Yeah, a really good header, but some pretty ropey Peter Shilton goalkeeper. We wouldn't see any more of that in the future, so that's fine. But interestingly, with the game heading into injury time, Columbia very happy to get a draw at Wembley, just keeping the ball in a way that actually looks quite familiar to now.

18:24But the Wembley crowd in 1988 was absolutely fuming. They were booing. Even the commentators were like, well, this is just not on. They're just passing the ball to each other. What is this? So, yeah, a snapshot of a very different time. What do you remember of the rise of that Colombia team of talents, Luis? Yeah, you know, somebody that was at the time still growing up, still living in Peru, you know, where the social and political situation in Peru was not dissimilar to what was going on in Colombia, specifically, obviously, as we go further with Pablo Escobar and, you know, the drug infested issues that were going on with the country.

19:07Peru was suffering from the same thing. The thing about that Colombian team, and really, it doesn't originate, just like Felipe was talking about Toque Toque, it doesn't originate with him, but it definitely evolves and develops with Francisco Maturana, who essentially is the godfather of Toque Toque, the man who managed Atlético Nacional, who picked nine players out of that national team to go to the World Cup in 1994. And the reason why this amazing, innovative and incredibly poetic Colombian team originated in that time was because they were a rebellious attitude against what was happening in the country.

19:46and you know just in the same way that brazil was doing it with pele in the 70s and argentina towards obviously you know the rise of the maradona in the 80s colombia was doing exactly the same thing and so when felipe talks about the fact that you know so many colombians and south americas were really not being looked at by europeans as much toque toque it was really honestly the identity sort of megaphone way of saying this is who we are this is what we're all about. It was a remarkable way of expressing not just Colombian football, but Colombian identity. One of the reasons that Colombian players in general weren't making moves abroad so much was that clubs in Colombia were really rich.

20:24And there's a reason for that. And it's tied in with the whole background, the kind of social background that Luis was just touching on there, the way that the enormous amounts of money that the country's drug cartels were moving around was being increasingly passed through the football clubs, football clubs like Atletico Nacional of Medellin, who Pablo Escobar was heavily involved with, and who in 1989, before the Colombian national team had begun to make such huge waves, themselves produced a bit of a seismic shock by winning the Copa Libertadores.

21:11For the first time, which was a tournament that, you know, to this day, I believe Colombian clubs have only won it twice with Once Calas. And then who was the other team that won in 2016, Luis? Was that Nacional again? Yeah, I think Nacional did it again. Yeah. Under Roya. So, no, at the time it was a big deal for a Colombian team to win the Copa de la Artura in 88. And to Luis's point about rebellion, I think the Colombian national team played that way and Colombian football became synonymous with toque toque and keeping the ball and rondos and sort of that dynamic style of play. Because in the 90s, I think football was very physical.

21:50It was very direct. That was certainly how Argentina played. A lot of South American teams, it was very, very physical. And Colombia came out with this style that like, OK, try to kick us, try to get us, try to get the ball. But you're right. I think in football terms in the late 80s to the 1990s, not just Colombian football, Colombian society certainly infiltrated with cartel money. The club that I support in Cali is America de Cali. In the 80s and 90s, they were a powerful club owned by one of the other cartels in Cali, the Rodriguez-Orejuela family from Cali. They were the rivals of the Medellin cartels.

22:29And these teams for the drug lords were like their toys. This was what they used as entertainment. It was also very competitive among these men. And just to give you a sense of the way that the cartels really infiltrated society in Colombia, Pablo Escobar, who we know as a terrorist these days, he was a senator at one point. He was a senator in Congress. He got up to that level. And so that tells you everything about what was circulating within football and just within Colombian society at the time. When we look at the kind of cast around this Colombia team, whether you're talking about Maturana, the coach, or Higuita, and you'll have to excuse my very gringo pronunciations on these, or Valderrama, or Freddy Rincon, Acostino Esprilio, and Andres Escobar, you have to mention Pablo Escobar as well, the football-loving chief of the Medellin drug cartel, who, a terrorist, ruthless, barbaric, extremely charismatic at the same time.

23:37possessed of a genuine passion it seems for football didn't just invest in the two big clubs in medellin but also in hundreds and hundreds of pitches for kids and underprivileged people in the region which is great but at the same time essentially declared war on the state in the late 1980s and his death then a year before the 94 world cup also has a pretty big impact on the way that tournament played out for colombia the death of pablo escobar actually in many ways made it worse because it added this, you know, essentially and, you know, iconically Pablo Escobar at that time, as you mentioned, a terrorist and also a Robin Hood of sorts for poor communities.

24:20He was also the king. And when the king dies, then everybody wants that crown. So there was already now what was politically and from a criminal standpoint, such a high pressured society now it was even worse so players were just so scared of of not delivering of not living up to expectation and i'd just go as far to say jimbo that you know we talk about the five nothing destruction against argentina in many ways this was the worst thing that could have happened because the expectations now for colombia for the 1994 world cup was so high pele himself uh you predicted that Colombia would win the World Cup in 1994.

25:01So it was just such a horrible situation that came out of such beauty for these players living under such pressure in narco football. Well, indeed. 5-0, perhaps the pinnacle of this story. Let's take it back, though, and have a look at the extraordinary run of this Colombia team, starting in 1989.

25:29This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Olly Kaye and the very best football writers around. 1989 was a pretty terrible year for Colombia. You had the terror campaign conducted by the Midian cartel really in full flow. So a presidential candidate assassinated, a passenger flight blown up with a bomb, 110 people dying in that, bombing of a government building in Bogota, 52 people dying there, a referee assassinated after a game between Independiente and America de Cali.

26:11Just a grotesque and horrific set of circumstances for people to be living in. On the football field, almost by conscious contrast, things had never been better. Things had never been better, like I said. And you set up the backdrop. For me, having been in Columbia that year, 93, 94, there were some times and you would be at home in Cali, you would hear a bomb go off. And people understood what it sounded like, how to react. And at the time, most of the time, they were assassination attempts, going after judges or political figures. But it felt like an escape to watch football and to watch these teams, to watch these Colombian teams, not just the national team, but the club teams were very strong, like I mentioned before.

26:57And I think out of the darkness, you certainly did – rose this Colombian national team of these players, many of them who grew up within poverty, being linked as children to these organized crime groups. There were a lot of stories of players in the Colombian league dedicating goals to narco traffickers, to drug lords because that's where they came from. They remembered Pablo Escobar gave me a pair of boots. There was a player that dedicated a goal after that to Pablo Escobar. So it was entrenched. But I think for many of us that just wanted to enjoy football, the national team provided that escape.

27:41They really did. When Colombia made it to the World Cup, qualified in 1989 for the first time in 28 years, how did that feel? What was the expectation? That was incredible. Well, I think for me at the time in the 1986 World Cup was really my first vivid World Cup. 1990 was, I think, the first time I saw my family really invested in a World Cup because my dad, you know, he remembered. He told me we haven't I haven't seen this national team at this level since 62 when I was at high school. And he remembers Columbia playing the Soviet Union, which is a very strong side. And this miraculous 4-4 draw, he told me he celebrated.

28:19He kicked a slipper. It landed on the roof of his house. And he'll never forget that. And so we, you know, almost 30 years later, they qualify for the 1990 World Cup in Italy and they don't just qualify. They win their first game. You know, they're competitive. That style, you know, comes out. A lot of these players break out on the international stage. They make it to the second round. They advance the second round, which was just an unbelievable accomplishment for a Colombian national team. and then obviously they're eliminated by Cameroon and what to this day is still a dark, dark day for Colombian football.

28:56We talk about Iguita and some of his antics, but what he did in that game was certainly unforgettable, unforgivable as well. Iguita seems to want to get involved. I do not believe it. He's thrown the chances away now. That's it. 2-0, Roger Miller, and that is always the danger. But they showed once again that that style, that identity, the philosophy, the camaraderie, choosing players that understood each other, that it worked, that it could work at the international level. Duncan, you were busy imitating Higuita in the school playground around this time. Yeah, and obviously, as Felipe mentions, the Higuita there, he lost the ball.

29:39So was it his fault? Oh, yes. Yeah, definitely. Should a goalkeeper be getting lateral passes on the edge of the centre circle? possibly know but as Roger Miller ran through exactly Higuita makes a brilliant attempt to basically sort of scythe him down and just misses um it's one of the great sliding doors tackles slash fouls of uh football history but um I mean that was part of it I mean that when I imitated Higuita I would you know I would dribble up try and get basically lose possession on the halfway line and get shouted at by my teammates which I think very much is a sort of realistic uh approach Higuita looked extraordinary.

30:20Valderrama looked incredible. Felipe, to what extent were those haircuts normal in Colombia? I think for Higuita and there was the defensive midfielder, Leonel Alvarez, that long hair, that was pretty classic back in the day in South America. You saw a lot of players with that. Valderrama, though, is a unique hairstyle. It's sort of born from the coastal region that he's from. uh it's unique to that region uh and you know the the blonde hair was something that stood out obviously and he really loved that that haircut i think i remember he got injured before the world cup in a friendly against sweden and he had knee surgery and there were images of valderrama like being wheeled out of the the surgical room i think his hair was tied but it looked like he had cut his hair and the country just like went berserk.

31:12Like what happened? Did he cut his hair? Like this can't be happening. Bad omen. Uh, but the style of that team, you know, you get to the word, the tight shorts, you know, the big short sort of eighties, nineties shoulder pads in his, in his goalkeeper kit, uh, the way he played, you know, that was, became very normal to us. You know, if you watched him in the Colombian league, he would dribble to the center circle, We'll come back, do a couple of give and goes, take free kicks, score on free kicks. It became normalized. But they did epitomize, I think, a very brash and, I think, arrogant way of playing because they understood that they were good.

31:51They may have got knocked out in the knockout stages by Cameroon in 1990, but they're very much a team on the rise. 1993 brings a third place finish at the Copa America. part of a kind of two-year span leading up to 94 in which I believe Colombia lost only one game. And it's a run that features the match we mentioned before in September 1993, kind of the match heard around the world. They go to Buenos Aires to take on Argentina, the final World Cup qualifier. Argentina had not lost a qualifying match at home ever. After this game, they wouldn't lose another one for 16 more years. But that day, Colombia destroyed them with a footballing lesson so emphatic that, as Luis mentioned, at the end of the game, the entire crowd stood up and gave the visitors a standing ovation.

32:41El Cino, vamos para el cuarto, el Cino, increíble, increíble, increíble! Gol, gol, gol, gol, gol!

32:52El Cino, Colombia! Felipe, where were you watching this game? I was at a friend of my aunt and uncle's house. We all congregated at their house very early in the day. It became an all-day party, if you will. Lots of food, lots of drink, preparing for this evening game. And the run-up to that game, Jimbo, the days before, have you had Diego Maradona speaking and essentially saying that Colombia will always be below us. Argentina will always be here. Colombia will always be below us. There were fans in the streets of Bogota, Cali, and Medellin throughout Colombia already celebrating this moment.

33:36There was a coffin with an Argentine flag draped around it being propelled through the streets. And so I think Colombians understood that we don't typically beat Argentina. We're not supposed to win this game. But Colombia had almost secured their spot at that 1994 World Cup. So the pressure wasn't really on them as much as it was in Argentina at the time. And so all that, I think, played in Colombia's favor. And I remember being confident that let's just let's just perform and we're in the World Cup. And it really turned into a dreamland very quickly in that game. You know, you're looking at this Argentina side with Gabriel Batistuta, one of the greatest strikers the game has ever seen.

34:20Redondo, one of my favorite players ever. They're entering Monumental Stadium. They're entering Buenos Aires. where almost if you watch the footage, you're watching this hostile environment where they're being obviously racially abused. They're also being told, you know, you're all drug traffickers because there's already the reputation of what Colombia is because of what's going on. So for them to enter this game, and by the way, there was like, when they enter the game, they have to do it through this huge tunnel and they cannot enter anything aside from the grass because, you know, have to be careful of what might happen if they get too close to the crowd.

34:58And so for them to enter this game as the majority of them being black Colombians against a very hostile Argentinian crowd, you know, and to not just win, but to deliver was absolutely magnificent, absolutely ridiculous. And I just, I'm surrounded by Peruvians and we're kind of almost, you know, feeling Colombian because we know what it's like to struggle and we know what it's like to struggle against Argentina or Brazil. It was, you know, as I mentioned, Faustino Esprit was amazing. But Vive Valderrama in that match was unbelievable as well. It was just, it was a ridiculous performance and a fantastic victory.

35:36Yeah, he slides the ball into Rincon for the opening goal about five minutes before the halftime break. Five minutes into the second half, Esprit with the first of his two goals. His first indeed for Colombia. Rincon gets the third. Rincon, sorry, gets the third. And then probably the best goal of the game, Esprit is Chip of Goikachea. And he sets up El Tren Valencia for the 5-0. What was your favorite bit of it all, Felipe? What really brought the house down? You know, I'll be honest. The first goal, Freddie Rincone. Imagine Virgil van Dijk, the build of a Virgil van Dijk and the skill of a number 10.

36:19That was Freddie Rincone. He had legs that were like tree trunks, players bounced off of him. And when the games got physical, like it did in the first half, he would appear. He would appear. He would like, give me the ball. You want to kick someone? Try to kick me. And that became part of the identity, too, when games got that scrappy. So for him suddenly to receive this phenomenal ball from Valderrama and then to put it away the way he did at full speed, dancing around the goalkeeper and then putting it away, it was a shock for everyone. We were winning this game. But my favorite moment, you mentioned it already, Jimbo.

36:54I mean, the chip from Faustino Esparilla became a goal that I would go home and try to recreate over and over again as a high schooler. When he scored that goal, the commentator in Colombia said, actually, when he was making that run, when the ball was in the air, the commentator said, break out the champagne. Because that was it. This was an iconic victory. we had schooled Argentina in their own backyard and it was time to party and possibly win the next World Cup Duncan meanwhile I mean in this esteemed company I really don't want to undermine the 5-0 but when you watch the game it does, I mean XG wasn't around in those days, no Duncan but some of the goals are quite fortuitous but that's what makes football so magical, everyone no matter who you support, what team you've watched, everyone knows there's some nights where things just go for you and it did feel like that was one of those, but that's fine.

37:48It doesn't undermine the great win, I'm just saying. I'll just add, by the way, that what Duncan's talking about, that's the beauty of that Colombian team. They are the antithesis of XG and what should happen and statistical analysis. They are so inconsistent in what the narrative should be. Argentina were actually the better team at the beginning of the game, and Argentina really should have scored a few goals here, But that's what Colombia did so well, especially in that decade. They just completely looked at what should happen and just ripped it apart. Excellent. Well, what should happen for many people next was that Colombia would go to the World Cup and be semi-finalists, considered among the big traditional powers like Brazil, Italy, Holland and Germany.

38:36As mentioned, football's very own Nostradamus, Pele, tipping them to take the title. but what was supposed to be their consecration instead for Calabria proved to be the tournament where it came apart in terrible fashion. We'll get on to USA 94 after this.

38:59You're listening to The Totally Football Show with James Richardson. Now we do four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. It would be hard to imagine a build-up to a World Cup worse than the one that Colombia had ahead of their opening game at USA 94. yeah i think looking back that's that's an accurate statement at the time you know colombia didn't lose a game they they they played friendlies against anyone that was willing to pay the federation to play and those friendlies became you know colombia against sweden colombia against ac milan colombia against a star-studded parma side uh colombia against palmeiras and they you know anyone that wanted to play them they would play and colombia beat everybody and so the snowball became bigger and bigger you know heading into that world cup the expectation rose after every performance every backheel every spectacular goal in the run-up to that 94 world cup and and i think meanwhile you look at that team and they weren't prepared for that success they simply were not used to it one of the issues is that that extraordinary runner-friendly.

40:10There were 13 matches played in one, two, three, four continents between January and June of that World Cup year. It meant that they only arrived at their hotel in California for the World Cup a week before their opening game. Yeah, logistically, it was a disaster. You know, when I spoke with Oscar de Cordova, the goalkeeper of the 1994 World Cup, I spoke with him for a story on that journey, you know, from, from the five nil win to the USA 94, you know, he said the one thing that, that I think will shock listeners is that he's, he admitted, we did not even study our opponents. You know, we didn't watch film.

40:46We didn't think we could lose. We didn't think there was a team that could beat us, uh, which sounds crazy considering what preparation is like today in, in football terms. But also you mentioned it like arriving a week before the first game, and then they had structured some travel packages for fans where you could stay at the team hotel and essentially party with the players you know you had valderrama and other players down in the hotel lobby with fans before a world cup match and so also cordoba telling me it was just insanity that we did that like looking back it was very unprofessional and i think it just led up to what became a disaster for them at that tournament in usa what why was cordoba the keeper and not higuita yeah so this is an interesting story.

41:32If you want a deeper version of it, go to Netflix, find the documentary called The Scorpion. It really tells the story of René Higuita. He's in it. He narrates it. He's very much part of it. And what happened back then, he was the goalkeeper. He was the starting goalkeeper for Colombia. He was, honestly, besides Valderrama, he was the emblem of that national team. And he's one of these players that grew up around the cartels. As a child, he benefited from these pitches that were built for players. He had associates that he grew up with that then became friends that he grew up with that then became associates of the cartel.

42:14So he was always in that world. And he tried to separate himself from it many times, kept being pulled back. And when there There was a kidnapping between – a rival cartel's daughter was kidnapped by another cartel. Yiguita became an intermediary to get her rescued. And what happened, while it sounds like a fine gesture, the authorities in Colombia just made him complicit in this kidnapping plot, which involved organized crime. And he went to jail. He went to prison in Colombia. This is after being a hero for the national team. And having gone to prison then meant that he was blacklisted, could not enter the United States, was essentially put on the same list as any cartel member.

43:02And that really ended his career at the time. He would go back to the national team, but that's why he missed the World Cup. And that's why Elskar de Cordova, a young goalkeeper who many did not know, you know, leading up to that World Cup, was thrust into that role. You've written an excellent account on The Athletic of the key match of this tournament and in many ways of this story, which was the defeat to USA at the Rose Bowl. And in there, some of the people that you talked to mentioned the attitude of the players because of the sustained success, the extraordinary success they'd been having.

43:39But the other element, which comes out really strongly, and I don't think I've ever heard of in terms of a team playing a World Cup, was the level of intimidation that the manager and the players were receiving. Yeah, it's still shocking to think about it because, you know, they had the whole country behind them heading into that World Cup. I think there was, you know, we were very naive to think that Colombia could just walk through a World Cup and get to a semifinal or a final. You know, it's not mentioned often, but the loss to Romania, in the opening group stage match, was really, really a gut punch to that Colombian side.

44:15It was a wake up call that this was not going to be this was not going to go as planned. And heading into that USA game, which was the second group stage match after the loss to Romania, it just set off, I think, a lot of a domino, a very negative domino effect in Colombia, where very powerful and influential men on inorganized crime had a lot of money on this team to do well. I think there was sort of an underworld of betting and gambling going on around that team with people thinking they're going to make us rich. We're going to get to a World Cup final. We're going to bet on this team. And when that didn't go as planned, a lot of people were upset.

44:53And so death threats became a common thing from between the game from Romania to the game against the USA. Back then, it was a fax. They received a fax at their hotel, which was a threat to several players and their families, specifically to Gabriel Gomez, who was the starting defensive midfielder. He was targeted and said, if he plays, we're going to kill his family. And the players, again, for players to have grown up in this and understood it, they didn't brush it off. I think that's what happens. This wasn't like, oh, this is just some idle threat. They took it very seriously. Suddenly they were like, we can't play.

45:30We're not playing. We need to leave. We need to protect our families. And they were shaken. You know, they were shaken because they understood what these what these cartels were capable of. They had seen it firsthand. And it just broke the team down. Is it true that Maturana, the manager, received a message on his hotel television before the USA game? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Imagine that. Imagine that. That's the degree of creativity that these cartel members can actually execute when it comes down to a threat to make it real, to make it vivid. how they can infiltrate a hotel security system or just have someone within the hotel that suddenly the team's like, okay, we're compromised.

46:17People here are watching us. We're not safe here. And then imagine having to go out and play. And again, in Colombia, when the groups were announced after the draw, I remember being at school in Colombia, in Cali, a private school in Cali. All my friends were just like, we're the best team in the world. Oh, the USA? They They don't even play football. And I remember thinking that was the worst matchup that Colombia could have gotten. I was so anxious about that matchup because it's the expectation of a host country that was being billed as a country that doesn't play football. I just felt like it was meant to be a disaster.

46:54It was in my gut. And for it to live out that way was just really devastating. Also, Chonto Herrera, who was, you know, renowned for being one of the greatest writebacks in Colombian history, he learned that his brother had died in Medellin during that time. So, you know, Felipe speaking to just the gravity of the situation was that big. And it speaks to the overall cultural component of South America as a whole that sometimes Europeans don't understand. Like, you know, there is sometimes such a pressure, you know, to deliver because of so many issues. And this situation in Colombia was obviously the most gravies of all.

47:36So they needed to beat the USA. USA, though, hadn't won a World Cup game in 44 years. Back in 1950, they defeated a side called England, Duncan, but nothing since. In the 35th minute comes the decisive moment. as Harks now with Caligiri overlapping on the far side. Sends it inside. It's an own goal. The USA gets the score. Escobar on the own goal and the United States meets Colombia one to nothing. The pictures, I'm sure we've all got them in our head of him lying on the ground, holding his head for a moment or two before he gets back up to continue with the game. At the time, none of us understood how significant a moment that would be.

48:20In football terms, a defeat in that game meant that even beating Switzerland 2-0 in the final group stage match, Colombia were out. There's a lot of anecdotal talk about the reaction from some of their players about not being able to return to Colombia. Escobar did, and his life ended 10 days after that own goal, murdered in the parking lot of a Medellin nightclub. there's there's so much said about what happened to escobar that night there's an excellent documentary you mentioned one on from the 30 for 30 series but the the two escobars details with kind of with testimony from people who were there pretty effectively that for all the gambling uh that had gone on around the team for all the the stakes for all the the various interests it may well just have been a question of a fight of pride and and some people with guns who didn't want to be spoken back to yeah the motive for years has been debated you know what was the motive of andres soskebor's murder in medellin was it a gambling debt did someone say something that they shouldn't have said did he respond you know i think what what one takeaway is that these players as as important as they were to colombian culture and as as they were stars but they weren't you know they they could have been victims as well they weren't untouchable players And, you know, I think Andres Escobar, going back to the Yongo, you know, he was a bit of a infallible player.

49:52He was pretty flawless. And he represented another side culturally of that Colombian team. You know, Luis mentioned it. A lot of these players were black men from poverty that had risen up and reached the pinnacle of the sport. Andres Escobar came from a bit more of an affluent background in Medellin, was well-educated, and just was a very good footballer and decided to stick with the sport rather than perhaps going into private business or law school or anything like that. And he just commanded a lot of respect. Remember, a left-footer center back that was very clean on the ball and had been scouted by AC Milan back then when Milan was actually probably the best team in the world at the time.

50:39And so for him to make a mistake in that game against the U.S., I think it just really epitomized the dismal state of that national team. If the player that you saw that represented perfection was unable to keep his composure and perhaps make a mistake of that gravity, it really spelled a lot of doom for that national team. He was known as El Caballero. He was known as the gentleman. This was somebody that was such a, not just a great athlete and a leader, but he was a good man. He was tragically ready to marry his fiance as well. He had already set up a charity for children, local children around his neighborhood.

51:22as Felipe mentioned as well, Ace of Milan, he was almost set ready to go there. He had already talked to his sister about, you know, going to Italy and everything. So this was a player of extreme quality and, you know, that obviously tragically suffered his fate. But like Felipe was saying, it's like they weren't impervious to what was going to happen once they returned to Colombia. In fact, you mentioned Jimbo, the 30 for 30 documentary. There's obviously this great scene where they talk about how he invited players out, teammates out, let's go out. And none of them wanted to go out. Andres Esco felt, look, I just want to go out and relax and just get back to reality and normality.

52:05And then obviously that fateful night happened. It's a horrible, tragic situation that unfortunately, I feel sometimes gets glorified too much just because of what was happening with the situation in the country. Glorified in what sense, please? I think that sometimes, you know, I think it's an important part of the story. We need to talk about it. I'm not even talking about the Escobar murder, but I just think that sometimes South American teams, specifically Colombian that time, get stereotyped into just thinking that, you know, this is what this country is all about, right? I mean, even when you look at reviews online about the two Escobars or Narcos or whatever, almost the first three comments are about these freaking Colombians, man, these drug traps.

52:53You know, there comes a sort of caricaturish version of what Colombia is. I, you know, I'm an ESPN employee. I think the 30 for 32 Escobars is a magnificent documentary. But let's be honest, it doesn't happen without, you know, the fact that really the main talking point is Pablo Escobar himself. You know, when sometimes I feel you need to just highlight the fact that South American and Colombian football is so, so much more than that. Well, the impact was huge, Felipe, I imagine, back in Colombia. Hundreds of thousands of people filing past his body. as it kind of lay almost in state afterwards.

53:33What was the reaction there? And did it bring changes? You know, I think it was what is commonly referred to as rock bottom. It really felt like a rock bottom moment for Colombian society at the time. And I know you, we've mentioned this already. There had been a referee had been assassinated, multiple judges, politicians as well. Remember, the 1986 World Cup was supposed to be played in Colombia. And because of political narco violence, it was taken from the Colombian Federation and played in Mexico. And so this was building up to, I think, what was obviously a horrendous moment for Colombian history, the death and the murder of Andres Escobar.

54:15The funeral and the murals that are still in Medellin to this day that honor him, I think it always takes you back to that moment, unfortunately. to, you know, to I think what can happen when I think rivalry and passion and the folkloric part of football, when it turns sour, can lead to tragedy. And that's the Andres Escobar story, unfortunately. You know, I think people forget how good a player he was and how good a teammate he was. And, you know, some of these players have still struggled to this day to tell it. You know, Carlos Rodorama did an interview very recently. I'll say this quickly, where he's finally able to open up about the death of Andres Escobar.

54:55And the one thing he said is that he was told he had finally decided to fly back to Columbia after spending a few weeks in the States after Columbia had been eliminated. And he was told of the death, the murder of Andes Escobar by a flight attendant on the flight who came up to him and said, I'm so sorry, Carlos. And he said, what happened? Sorry about what? And she said that a player had been murdered. He tells the story thinking it has to be Esprit. It has to be Tino Esprit. Like if this happened at a nightclub, if this happened over a dispute, over an argument, you know, he was running through his head that it was either Esparrilla or someone else.

55:32Like it never registered that it could have been Andres Escobar. So I think that was also just a very, very shocking moment for the players that the guy that they looked up to that had, you know, really come out of this as a future captain of the national team was now gone. In football terms, Colombia continued. Did some of his teammates retire after USA 94? The player that had been threatened, Gabriel Gomez, the defensive midfielder, never played for Colombia again. Right. Several players, I think, took time off from the national team. But the team continued. In route to 1998, to France 98, they had somewhat of a similar qualifying campaign.

56:16They were very good. They continued to play the way they played. They remained as a top South American side. They earned a victory over Argentina in Barranquilla. So it was still a team that was performing at a high level. And by the way, between that time after they left 1994 and up to 1998, around 16 clubs in Colombia went bankrupt. So obviously also the domestic angle of Colombian football was also really, really struggling. Why was there such a long gap before Colombia made it back to the World Cup in 2014? There are a lot of reasons, but, you know, Luis mentioned it in 98. By then, you know, Recon, Valderrama, a lot of these players were in their late 30s.

57:00And Colombia has always had problems with bringing in new players, with developing new talent that can play at the senior international level. And Colombia is one of the countries that exports the most players around the world. But not all those players even make it to the senior national team. And I think there was a problem with how do you rejuvenate this side? What is the identity now after this golden generation of players is now essentially out of the national team? And so it was a struggle to go from 98 and not be in a World Cup until 2014 was some of the darkest periods for Colombian football by far.

57:35Not forgetting, by the way, that the federation was also implicit. I mean, many presidents were caught as well because of money laundering as well. So the organization itself, the top of the snake or the top of the animal, whatever you want to call it, was also in complete desiré. So there was no domestic internal organization that, as Felipe said, continued to develop players. One of the reasons why we had this golden age of Colombia was because these players came from, you know, America de Cali, Atlético Nacional, domestic, local players who really believed in a system that no longer existed once, you know, pretty much 98 finished.

58:11Although in 2001, Colombia hosted the Copa America and won for the first time. Yeah. There's an asterisk, even as a Colombian, I think it's important to say. Let's be honest. What's the asterisk? I mean, the asterisk is that, yes, they hosted, but it was a highly controversial tournament. Argentina refused to play. They didn't go. They didn't show up. Marcelo Bielsa was the coach at the time and said, no, Colombia is too dangerous. I won't take my players to Colombia. They didn't show up. Brazil took their third team. Brazil was eliminated by – yeah, who did they – were they eliminated by? Honduras?

58:48Yeah. They lost to Honduras. Honduras had to be invited to the tournament in order to just make it a well-rounded tournament with enough teams. And so even as a Colombian, and I celebrated that win over Mexico, which is another team that was invited to that tournament to make up the numbers, it still looked back on us. It should have been better. We didn't play against the top sides in our region. You've had post that 2014, the quarterfinal for the James Rodriguez side, the run in the 2018 World Cup. When you look back, though, Felipe, possibly with the context that we've described, is the 90s Colombia still the one for you?

59:30oh you put me in the worst spot i knew you were going to ask me this i thought about this i think that the 2014 team i don't think there's a team that has made me as happy as them but if if i'm honest like the 90s were incredible the the usa 94 though is just such a dark spot for such a stain and you know i i still suffer from thinking about that tournament and the way i felt and the way I looked at my dad. I'd never seen my dad in such, you know, he's seen a ghost. It seemed like that. My cousins, family members, the country, you know, in disarray. And the 2014 team just, I think, they stand out because they played at a World Cup and they were one of the best teams through the quarterfinals.

1:00:18But do you think that the 94 team could have done that had circumstances not been against them? Yes, I think so. You know, I think so. I think looking at even just the field of the 1994 World Cup, you know, Columbia was a team that should have been in a quarterfinal round. You know, they had the talent to do it. You know, I do not believe that they were a favorite to win the World Cup, but they were certainly a team that should have caused a lot more problems for their opponents, that should have made history as the first team to advance to a quarterfinal. And in the end, that became the 2014 team led by James Rodriguez.

1:00:51That's why they to this day are still heroes for a lot of Colombians. Right. The 94 team would have been famous for their football as opposed to everything else that happened. What could have been, Duncan? Yeah, I think, I mean, obviously Felipe talked about the difficulty of playing USA as hosts, but also playing Romania first up, who I don't think anyone kind of envisaged how good they were going to be in that tournament. And I mean, in some ways you look at Hadji's goal from the touchline and you kind of need a scorpion kick to keep that out. That would have been quite useful. But yeah, we all know that tournaments can, you know, you lose your first game and you're up against it and so it proved.

1:01:31Excellent. Luis? Just, I feel that if you put this Colombian 90s team and you teleport them to the modern game now and in their prime and you give them all the help and all the infrastructure that all these teams nowadays get, they would honestly be one of the most remarkable things we have ever seen because I really think that it's not spoken enough about how good some of these players in that time were and because of what was going on you know it sometimes gets overshadowed I mean Felipe mentioned it Freddy Rincón to me was an unbelievable unbelievable player Pio Valderrama Duncan talked about that game when they played England.

1:02:18And Laurent Blanc watched that game and wanted him straight away to come to French football. And he didn't rise up to the levels because in itself, Toque Toque was so locally accustomed to what they were all about. But if you take that 90s team of Colombia now and you teleport them to now in their prime, I mean, it would be just a sight to behold. I'm always going to have a love and an appreciation and a nostalgia for what that Colombia team represented even when they destroyed Peru every single time they play us they don't get enough credit and one of my big bugbears in football is you know people talk about Esprit going to Newcastle and the title bid falling apart it wasn't his fault he assisted more goals in his first seven Premier League games than anyone else had no player assisted more goals between February and May that year than he did he did what he was supposed to do it was possibly you know your Darren Peacocks at the back that didn't.

1:03:11But yeah, I think it's an ongoing thing that they love that team and remembered around the world, but probably still don't get the credit they deserve. Right, it's pretty one of the ones to make it abroad, Parma and Newcastle. Rincon was at Napoli and Real Madrid. As you mentioned, Valderrama went to Montpellier. But I guess we would have seen more, whether it would be Escobar in that Milan back four, which would have been an incredible idea with Balezi, Maldini, Tassotti, Costa Gorta. Obviously, one of them have to drop out. And we would have seen other players maybe had it not turned out the way it did at 94.

1:03:50Is it difficult to look back on this, Felipe? It is. It is very much so. It always is. You know, the story I wrote a couple of years ago for The Athletic where I spoke to journalists and players, Colombian players on that team, that was some of the hardest reporting I had to do because it was really going back to a very dark time and getting these players to to rehash that was difficult for them. Some of the players told me I won't talk about Andres. Don't ask me about X, Y, Z. So, you know, it's it's tough to see your heroes fall because they were heroes. They were what I envisioned a superstar footballer was all about.

1:04:30And for to see them, you know, really dehumanized in a way when with with the murder of Andres Escova but also just their their stardom was sucked away from them so instantly at that you at that tournament uh to this yeah to this day it's it's difficult to go back and and relive it and USA 94 for so many people was a wonderful world cup you know some great games great players and sometimes I just can't get to that place of joy when I think about USA 94 it's difficult for me yeah I think entirely understandable. Well, many thanks for being with us today. And Luis, to you as well. Duncan, of course, our gratitude for your presence and for now giving us the answer to the question.

1:05:14Should we see, first of all, how many Felipe and Luis can come up with? So there are six. There's six. Six Colombian players. Pablo Angel has been ticked off. Okay. They've got to have played 100 or more Premier League games. Luis. All right. I'm going to go with Tottenham's own Davinson Sanchez. Correct. Okay, Felipe. That's a great shout. That's a great shout. Oh, my gosh. A hundred games in the Prem. Can I get a hint? Are there attackers or defenders? I'll try. I mean, foul count ever made to a hundred. No, he only made 36. I think I got another one. I think I got another one. Hugo Rodallega, surely.

1:05:54Oh, my goodness. Is Hamilton Ricard on there? Yes, correct. 106 games, 31 goals. Two more to go. Just give me the area. Is it attacker or defender? There's a very famous forward, I would say. Oh. Slash wide man. Oh. Jefferson Lerma? That wasn't the one I was thinking of. That is also correct. Is he on there? He's on there, right? He's been around for a while. I feel like he's in it. Yeah. 160 games. The other one I'm going to struggle. I think the other one I would say is probably the most obvious. At least in terms of recency. What's he look like? Like a footballer. What's the one who's just left?

1:06:44He's just gone to Bayern Munich. Oh, Lucho. No way. How did we miss the easiest one? Unbelievable. Greatest Colombian player of all time. 103 games, yeah. So, fair play. Magnificent. Magnificent. I'm sure the answer was the most obvious one. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Sometimes the very thing you're searching for is the one thing you can't see, as Vanessa Williams once opined. Beautiful. Excellent. All right, well, with that, we will finally wrap this one up. Listen, thank you so much for being with us today on Totally Extra, and thanks to everybody else who was with us, including both producers Lucy and producer Charlie, because it took two of you.

1:07:23we'll be back soon with another totally extra for an hour from all of us here it's goodbye

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