After July 17, I have no idea when ESPN will show “The Two Escobars” again. You need to see it or record it, or buy it on DVD. Whatever it takes.
Part of ESPN’s radically uneven 30 for 30 series, “The Two Escobars” stands out not only as the best documentary of the 30 for 30 series, but one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. Better than Hoop Dreams. Better than Man on Wire. Better than The Fog of War.
This is a documentary that takes you into the morally confused world of the Colombian narco-futbol era. The story follows the lives of two men (unrelated) named Escobar. One of these men is the famed drug lord Pablo Escobar. The other is Colombian central defender Andres Escobar. They were not friends, but their lives were intertwined in a way that is a perfect metaphor to the dependent social relations between many parts of Colombia and the drug trade.
Pablo Escobar owned Nacional, where Andres began his professional career and won the Copa Libertadores. Pablo Escobar built many soccer fields all over Colombia for the poor, increased the salaries for Nacional players and provided funding for the development of what would be one of the most dynamic national teams in recent history.
Pablo Escobar also used Nacional to launder drug money. He ordered the murder of match officials who had been bribed to make his team lose, and he invited many of Colombia’s best players to his house frequently for private games in which he paid them a handsome fee. Picture Eric Cantona in those ‘02 World Cup Nike commercials that Terry Gilliam did, but make him a narco terrorist.
The beauty of this film is that it shows all the right footage at the right time. There are no “gotcha” moments in this documentary. No one is exposed as an outright liar. Instead, you are shown the players and coaches talk about football as a “safe haven” away from the problems of Colombia. You see politicians glom on to the national team after their famous thrashing of Argentina in USA ‘94 qualifying as a way to clean up the national image.
But there are no safe havens. The players and coaches are getting paid so that the drug trade can safely legitimize its ill-gotten wealth, and everyone on the field took, and kept, extra money for participating. They went to parties at the houses of drug lords, they played private matches for money. The team’s #1 keeper was arrested for associating with Escobar right before the World Cup. Yet, the Colombian FA all took money from the same people. The politicians did too. Higuita was jailed for meeting with Pablo Escobar in a Colombian prison, which was only possible because Pablo Escobar had intimidated or bribed the legislature to make Colombia a non-extradition country with the United States.
Pablo Escobar would escape prison, but the United States would help to track him down and topple his empire. The documentary contends that it was the threat of the extradition of Pablo Escobar to the United States that triggered the escalated political violence in the country. Even in making this suggestion, the film shows the brutal attacks carried out by Escobar’s men in his reign of terror. The US may have knocked over an unhappy domino, but it was Colombian society that had placed so many dominoes one after another so they would fall in this way.
President George H. W. Bush’s national address demanding the extradition of Escobar was the event that set off violence. But the madness of the violence itself had nothing to do with its cause.
One cannot help but feel the horrible poetic irony that it was another event, in the United States, by a United States player (a cross by Eric Wynalda, if I am not mistaken), that triggered the violent end of Andres Escobar. Andres seemed like pretty decent man, who largely tried to do the right sorts of things for the right sorts of reasons. When we are being realistic about what we should expect from ourselves and others, we ought to take that evaluation as high praise. The story of Andres is one of a man just trying to reach for his dreams while trying to help others and trying to do no harm to others. This proves impossible in the Colombia of the era, and Andres and his teammates come to abruptly learn this at the ‘94 World Cup.
Obviously, Wynalda’s cross does not deserve any direct responsibility for Escobar’s death. The action triggered an argument in a parking lot, that led to murder, and the role of the match itself is only that it is the conversation-starter. The rational part of my brain says that if two teams cannot play without there being violent results if one side is victorious, than there can be no soccer. Yet, as I watched that USA game again, I thought to myself how I wish things had been different. Albert Camus once said that “no one should die for an idea.” He was referring to the scientific discoveries of Galileo, which he was asked to discredit on pain of death, and did. While Camus himself adored football, I doubt the idea of an emerging US soccer program would somehow be more worthy of a human life in his eyes. Nor in mine.
Were it so simple, I would walk away with a sense of deep regret that world would have been a better place had one of my nation’s most important victories never happened. But it is not so simple, and the directors do not let us off that easy. The team was falling to pieces leading into the United States match and the air of corruption surrounding them gives the team the appearance of a time bomb, rather than the victim of the most famous own goal in football history.
Everyone loves to quote Bill Shankley’s line about football being more important than life or death (no one ever gets the words right, so I’m not even going to bother to try and produce the quote.) Watch Colombia mourn and bury Andres Escobar, then see how you feel.
Written By Steven
Maloney
(80 Posts) |
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