Aldo Civico, a Rutgers University anthropologist and conflict resolution expert, says `'the joyful and intense expression of unity" around the Colombian team's four-game winning streak has let people "transcend the political tribalism" that has defined Colombia's violent history. It reminded him, he said, of how Nelson Mandela used South Africa's love of rugby as a tool of post-apartheid reconciliation.
The fear, of course, is that, lacking a Mandela, the unity will evaporate after the last referee's whistle sounds. No one, says former coach and player Alexis Garcia, wants to relive the anguish and shame Colombians felt after the July 2, 1994 slaying in a Medellin discotheque parking lot of 27-year-old defender Andres Escobar, who had knocked Colombia out of contention by accidentally kicking the ball into his own net in a game against the United States.
He was shot six times by the driver of two suspected drug traffickers, one of whom had complained to him about his blunder 10 days earlier in Los Angeles. Michael Zimbalist, who with his brother Jeffrey made the 2010 documentary `'The Two Escobars" about Colombian professional soccer's tainting by drug lords including Pablo Escobar, says the nation deserves credit for largely cleaning itself up in the years since both Escobars were killed.
It's heartwarming, said brother Jeffrey, how football extends to a country's sense of identity and has allowed the world to see a special side of Colombia it hadn't known.Which is not to say that either brother believes drug money is all gone from the sport.
In 2006, a drug trafficker affiliated with far-right militias named Gustavo Upegui was slain in his bedroom by a gun-wielding intruder. Upegui had been running the Envigado club just outside Medellin and had recently purchased the rights to an adolescent he thought had a brilliant future. In fact, that player currently leads all World Cup scorers with five goals. His name: James Rodriguez.
