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𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒍'𝒔 𝑮𝒐𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒆𝒓 [Thread]
𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘣𝘺 @SamDiss
1989 was Colombian football’s year, and René Higuita its beating heart.
![𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒍'𝒔 𝑮𝒐𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒆𝒓 [Thread]𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘣𝘺 @SamDiss1989 was Colombian football’s year, and René Higuita its beating heart.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EgcEJUGXYAEjjUS.jpg "𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒍'𝒔 𝑮𝒐𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒆𝒓 [Thread]𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘣𝘺 @SamDiss1989 was Colombian football’s year, and René Higuita its beating heart.")
𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘣𝘺 @SamDiss
1989 was Colombian football’s year, and René Higuita its beating heart.
Picture it:
May 31st, ‘89. Estadio El Campín, Bogotá. Game 2 of 2. 2600 feet above sea level, a level FIFA would later declare unfit for international football, but here they are, in this cacophonous bowl, tissue paper and ticker tape filling the air.
May 31st, ‘89. Estadio El Campín, Bogotá. Game 2 of 2. 2600 feet above sea level, a level FIFA would later declare unfit for international football, but here they are, in this cacophonous bowl, tissue paper and ticker tape filling the air.
Atlético Nacional, 260 miles from their home in Medellin, its stadium too small to host the final of the Copa Libertadores, South American’s wildest, grandest occasion, have come from a 2–0 first leg loss v Paraguay’s Olímpia to win 2–0 in the second.
And now it's penalties.
And now it's penalties.
El Verde manager, ex-dentist Francisco Maturana, knew the power of a racing heart. "Drug money in soccer allowed us to keep our best players,” the manager said later. “Our level of play took off. People saw our situation and said Pablo was involved. But they couldn’t prove it...”
Possible (probable) laundering of money for the most famous drug trafficker ever to one side, as Olímpia goalkeeper Ever Hugo Almeida — not a specialist; the team trying to psych out their opponents already — lined up his first spot kick, Higuita focussed.
The devil makes work for idle goalkeepers. Rarely has it been truer than of Higuita, a sweeper-keeper who pushed boundaries just to see what would happen, touching the flame just to see how much it would hurt. Sometimes it hurt a lot.
At fault for both Olimpia goals a few days earlier (in no man’s land for Rafael Bobadilla's header for 1–0, caught all-ends-up with Vidal Sanabria’s looping volley for 2-zip), in this shootout, the 28-year-old needed to repay all debts owed.
To his mother, who raised René on her own until her death when he was a boy. To his grandmother who took René in when there was nobody else.
To the kindly neighbours who bought the cheap magazines advertising mops and buckets and assorted, colourful, plastic tat that he sold door to door, hoping to make ends meet for him and his abuelita.
René owed a debt the academy manager who kept this erratic striker and made him into an erratic (but effective) goalkeeper.
And, now, to Maturana who, even at this stage in the cup, trusts René to risk it all.
Andrés Escobar scores first for El Verde. Then Almeida. René in goal, that silhouette, that hair, the energy, the aura. Those eyes. He saves. No, he catches. He catches the ball and pulls it into his chest.
Diving on it.
He won’t let go.
Diving on it.
He won’t let go.
The teams trade goals.
René takes El Verde’s fifth. Hammers it in. Hits it as hard as he can. He calmly walks off. The floor quakes. 260 miles from home, the fans from Medellin are electric.
René takes El Verde’s fifth. Hammers it in. Hits it as hard as he can. He calmly walks off. The floor quakes. 260 miles from home, the fans from Medellin are electric.
Gabriel Gonzalez’s run up for Olímpia's next kick is enormous. Almost off the screen. And it’s saved. From then on, René is the only man who matters. It doesn’t matter than his teammates miss twice, Olímpia miss four of their last four kicks.
Leonel Álvarez secures the win and the players mob him. Their ecstatic huddle is ringed by cheerleaders: green and white and pom poms. There's a lap of honour but the clouds already darken...
(The whole match is here, skip to 1hr54 for the decisive kick)
(The whole match is here, skip to 1hr54 for the decisive kick)
As the celebrations settle, the 1989 final is essentially struck off. Claims that Don Pablo ‘bought’ the title gain pace. All Colombian teams are banned from the next year’s competition.
“I was right,” said René in an interview two decades later. “That night in 1989, I was just 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. I think that night... I had dreamed of it sometime. I had a dream of being in a final — I didn't know with whom — and saving penalties...”
“That was the night..." said René. "Sometimes you get a berraquera, some puta that says that this title was bought. But they were not there. They did not have to save that day, they did not have to score. They did not feel what we felt... It is just envy.”
René Higuita will be remembered. For Roger Milla, the Scorpion Kick, and as a man who served months in jail as part of an Escobar-entangled kidnapping.
René claims, to this day, that he was just doing the right thing.
That the $64,000 he received in payment for getting a teenage girl back to her family from her kidnappers meant nothing.
That the result was all that mattered.
That the $64,000 he received in payment for getting a teenage girl back to her family from her kidnappers meant nothing.
That the result was all that mattered.
It’s easy to not believe him now. Decades of mythology grimed onto memories. But maybe he means it. Truly.
“This is my martyrdom,” he said on his release. “I ended up in jail because I tried to save someone's daughter.”
“This is my martyrdom,” he said on his release. “I ended up in jail because I tried to save someone's daughter.”
And so René Higuita ends up martyred in our memory. Reduced to silly front flips in meaningless friendlies, gurning sun bed selfies with Tino Asprilla.
Mercurially-talented goalkeeper with a penchant for self sabotage, flukey weirdo, liar, conman, kidnapper, mouthpiece for a billion-dollar criminal organisation...
He might be all of them. He might be more.
He might be all of them. He might be more.
But for that day at least, that day in 1989, the decade’s last day of May: he was there.
Staring down a ball. Hair, energy, eyes—those eyes. That smile. The wobbly knees. Those saves. That goal. That trophy.
That was real.
Even if it wasn’t.
Staring down a ball. Hair, energy, eyes—those eyes. That smile. The wobbly knees. Those saves. That goal. That trophy.
That was real.
Even if it wasn’t.
And that's it.
Read, like, share. You know the score by now.
Words by @SamDiss, images by various. Go watch the excellent 30 For 30 documentary The Two Escobars for more on this period of Colombian football.
Read, like, share. You know the score by now.
Words by @SamDiss, images by various. Go watch the excellent 30 For 30 documentary The Two Escobars for more on this period of Colombian football.
