Pablo Escobar: coke dealer, killer, devoted soccer fan!

Pablo Escobar: coke dealer, killer, devoted soccer fan!

Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by Sean Cunningham

Sometimes you need to see something to grasp its scale — simply stating its dimensions fails to do it justice, no matter how accurately you describe it. That’s the case with the empire of Pablo Escobar. Jeff and Michael Zimbalist’s documentary The Two Escobars offers extensive footage of the late Colombian drug kingpin once ranked among Forbes’ richest men and it’s extraordinary, not only in terms of the toys his money lets him acquire (though those are impressive, with his race cars and helicopters and the like), but the prominence it affords him, as when he stands beaming and seemingly his entire community applauds his opening of a new playing field. The flip side of this is it also lets us appreciate the carnage Pablo helped create: this is a man who took down planes and once blew up an entire city block to make a point, devastation on a level that sounds almost unreal until you see the bodies and the survivors stumbling around the destruction. He was both a generous and extremely dangerous man and, as this doc makes clear, he really liked soccer.

The documentary traces how the rise of Colombian soccer can be firmly linked to the influx of drug dealer money, as successful cocaine suppliers like Pablo often adopted a team and financed it. This newfound wealth enabled Colombian squads to hold on to local talent and even import gifted foreigners, with the result their clubs — particularly Pablo’s beloved Atletico Nacional — soon were dominating South America (a shocking feat on the continent that includes Brazil and Argentina). Unsurprisingly, this money was not doled out entirely for the love of the game (club ownership was an ideal method for money laundering, as you could lie about how much you sold or bought a player for, making up the difference in drug loot), yet Pablo’s affection for the sport seems sincere, as his now imprisoned favorite hit man — who states that he killed roughly 250 people, but didn’t keep an exact count because he isn’t “a psychopath” — notes that even as they were fleeing from the authorities, Pablo would make a point of listening to games on his portable radio.

The second Escobar in the documentary is Andres Escobar, who was the captain of Colombia’s National Team (and a star on Pablo’s Nacional). In the 1994 World Cup, he scored an own goal for the U.S., contributing to highly regarded Colombia’s shock elimination. Soon after he was gunned down outside a bar back home, an act long blamed on dealers angry about the money they lost betting on Colombia but here attributed to drug kingpins being so indignant Andres would dare to stand up for himself when they insulted him that they had their bodyguard execute the unarmed man (only the bodyguard was tried; incredibly, despite repeatedly shooting a defenseless victim — and a beloved Colombian icon to boot — he wound up being released after only 11 years in prison) (and yes, there was allegedly some major bribery going on). Through Andres we see the difficulty of existing in a nation that’s allowed itself to be utterly corrupted: by all accounts a thoroughly decent young man, Andres nevertheless had to associate with drug dealers because there was no avoiding them, with the result he had encounters both relatively pleasant (Pablo frequently had players over to his estate) and far less so, culminating in the one that led to his death.

For me, the most unnerving moment of the film is the recounting of one of Pablo Escobar’s favorite pastimes. He was a friendly rival of another kingpin — isn’t it nice to see that even in the high-stress world of global narcotic trafficking, there’s still room for male bonding? — and when they were bored they would each pick a team of star Colombian players, get them helicoptered in, and have them play a game. (It’s not mentioned, but it seems probably Andres would have been brought in for some of these.) When it was over the loser would pay up — the typical wager was a million or two — and the players would be flown back home. There’s a certain charm to this, with two men who clearly adored the game arranging an exhibition that let players, who were inevitably from poor families, put a little extra money in their pockets. But there’s a madness to any place where a few people can treat everyone else as playthings, because — as any child knows and Andres tragically found out — you can only play with something for so long before you wind up breaking it.