How Colombia ruined the World Cup

In Colombia World Cup football means life and death. Literally. In 1994 Andres Escobar, a Colombian player was murdered after scoring an own goal in the group stages of the competition. In 2018 the social networks lit up with death threats for Carlos Sanchez as he received a red card that also led to Japan’s goal and his dismissal from the field. Threats such as if “Andres Escobar was killed for scoring an own goal then Carlos Sanchez should be killed and urinated on”, were easy to find on Facebook and other forums. Reviewing the statistics from a study carried out by the University of Los Andes, the premier university in the country based on global rankings as well as local reputation, they show that on days when Colombia play, violent injuries increase by around 50% from fights and other incidents that break out at football related gatherings. With the violence also comes death, at least 9 deaths were reported related to World Cup activity in 2014 and the most shocking day in history was a 5-0 victory over Argentina which won’t be remembered for the best ever result against such a high profile team, but for the 76 people killed and 912 people injured during the following celebrations across the country. Even the home coming bus is not safe, with the 2014 open top bus tour savaged by “fans” resulting in 42 injuries, 250 arrests and various threats made to the bus driver.

Reading through various Colombian articles about the root of the problem there is much agreement as to what causes the issues, with the majority of deaths occurring in Bogota. The common reference is that Bogota is a fractured society, not having maintained a strong identity as opposed to the costal regions and the second largest city Medellin where they have. Many discuss the lack of respect and cohesion as a reason that the diaspora of what has become Bogota just don’t care about each other and are therefore predisposed to be more violent. Colombian articles about this World Cup, discuss the pride and passion of the fans and talk of how it is one of the unique events that brings the country together. How Colombia with such a broken and complex history of violence for a few weeks every 4 years finds a common identity and passion around the nation. Obviously each country around the world has its own story but there is a failure to understand or identify that the same platitudes apply to nearly all countries, where each has its own politics and differences and in these weeks, where a team does well, in that country, be it England, France, Colombia or Belgium, they all see a collective pulling together in celebration and pride. In this World Cup there has also been an over spill of violence in England and France where celebrations have turned into looting and rioting, not common in such countries, although hooligan related events have been a bug bear for the English many years.

The extreme celebratory violence of the World Cup here in Colombia did not affect me personally and is not the underlying reason that the atmosphere soured and the final stages were ruined. The core issue was the England v Colombia game. Colombians have a strong reputation for being externally happy, often named as one of the world’s happiest countries by self-analytical surveys such as Gallop; they are also very welcoming to foreigners. As an expat living in Colombia when you travel around and spend time outside of it’s capital Bogota, you are generally welcomed with interest where the first question time and time again is, are you in love with Colombia yet?  There is a genuine pride that you are in their country and a belief that it is both positive for you and them; the guiding principal is that you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t believe it was a wonderful place. Chancing my arm with the accustomed positivity I watched the game in Medellin, in a craft beer pub run by a happy go lucky Colombian who ditched his legal career to brew and serve pints. It was just me, with about 30 Colombians, where I felt comfortable to shout for England without any reprisals; arguably something that would be much more risky for a Colombian in a London or a Mancunian boozer. True to form I spoke with the Colombians around me who were in good humour up until the penalty decision. There was a sharp interchange between myself and a Colombian girl about justice and from that point on I toned down the comments in order to not just antagonise her but a then grieving group in general. Once the Colombian goal went in I smiled riley and accepted the likely fate that England would be exiting this round as the game drifted to penalties. The Colombians though where not so sure as they believed Ospina to be a fairly average keeper when it came to saving penalties, based on his diminutive size. England won, I paid the bar tab and left. It was not the place to celebrate. My perception of the game was that Colombia had done very little, England had controlled it for the most part and the last minute goal was a little fortunate for Colombia.

Colombian people vote themselves to be one of the happiest in the world. From my experince they are certainly the most welcoming.

Then the messages started to appear, in my Whatsapp, social media and through conversations. Colombia had been robbed, Fifa had been bribed and the English had cheated Colombia out of the cup. Even a petition, signed by over 300,000 Colombians was started for FIFA to overturn the result as it was such a travesty of justice, so obvious to everyone, that the only right and proper thing to do would be to replace England with Colombia. The petition stated two clear mistakes had not been identified by the American referee, who was allegedly completely against Colombia, paid for by England and part of the conspiracy to stop Colombia in the tournament. The first was the penalty where Carlos Sanchez climbs on the back of Kane, it was “evidently judged wrongly” according to the author of the petition Juan Diego Garcia, a law student from the Catholic University of Colombia. The second issue was that Bacca “legitimately” scored and again the “referee judged in the wrong manner what he had illegitimately considered to make the goal, as there were 2 balls on the field of play, something that the television cameras proved, was not judged correctly”.

It’s completely understandable in the moment that you might have these opinions, surrounded by family and friends, these incidents flash by, tempers rise and fall and there is very little time to analyze accurately what happened. It is harder in Colombia where the TV coverage show very few replays and there is no halftime analysis as breaks are stuffed with adverts and not pundits reviewing the game. Maradona did the same thing only to recant a day or so later, probably as he had a chance to see what actually happened. However it's unlikely that there was a more clear cut penalty in the entire competition. In the 8th, 26th and 53rd minute the referee warned the Colombian players for pushing and shoving in the penalty area before the corners or free kicks were being taken. It was shortly after the final warning that just 2 metres from where the referee was standing Carlos Sanchez pulled along by the tussle that he himself initiated was seen riding on the back of Harry Kane. It was clear cut and therefore VAR had nothing to do. Although in reality it did have something to do. The correct decision may well have been to award three red cards to different Colombian players for initially putting their hands on the referee and then subsequently digging their boots into the area of the penalty spot. Three minutes passed of verbal and physical harassment of the referee as well as several attempts to create an uneven penalty spot before the shot was finally taken.

Constant pushing and shoving in the penalty area that the referee warned the players about. It was only in the Colombian end as Colombia only had the one corner from which they scored in the whole of normal time.

The second claim about the Bacca goal is something only somebody watching their very first few games of football would be confused about. The game starts and stops on the referees whistle. You cannot play after the referee has blown his whistle. If that was not the case then Barrios would have conceded a penalty when he head butted Henderson; as the ball was not in play it is was not a penalty even though the incident was inside the penalty area and it was deemed a foul. Two balls were on the pitch. Pickford kicked one off but it hit the hoarding and started to head back towards the pitch. As Maguire was focused on this and stopping the ball returning to the field, Young oblivious to this threw the ball in to play. The referee saw what had happened as the Colombian winger collected the ball; he blew the whistle to stop play. Against the rules, Colombia continued to play and then put the ball in the net, the English players had stopped playing when the whistle was blown. It is not confusing, there was no protest from anyone as it was all quite obvious and the game carried on in a spell where the Colombian team participated in a rare phase of good, attacking, clean play.

Many Colombian fans don't believe the referee made the right decision. He consults with VAR about the penalty after 4 minutes of harrasment and pushing from the Colombian players. Result: a clear penalty

Reviewing the comments after the game from the Colombian coach Peckerman and their captain Falcao, the perspective in the mind of the Colombian players and management, that they projected to the public, is something quite bizarre. Peckerman said the following:

“There were a lot of penalties with Panama, with Tunisia. This hurts and you have to put yourself in the skin of the players. These events make football more complex. When there are so many fouls you (the referee) have to look for equilibrium so that the game can flow. I hope that I am wrong, but I am sure in the next game they are going to be more careful. I hope this doesn’t happen again as it was very obvious.”

In relation to the penalty

“We have a lot of confusion. It seems to me we are confusing this type of play. It’s a difficult situation. We have put in a lot of effort and we were brave, but we lacked a bit of depth. It was very hard to enter the game with much rhythm, because we had a fear when the ball was in our penalty area.”

“The elimination is a penalty missed. The game was drawn. They are a team that could not win on the field of play and win by penalties. The game was very rough. The whole world knows that is the case. You have to look for a way to defend the ball, knowing that it will be like that. It was an uncomfortable game, knowing that it was always around the sensation that he (the referee) was going to blow the whistle.”

“This was a brave team, that had fought a lot and had progressed. It did not give up against any rivals because of their names and reputation they have. For that I hoped to pass this round, because we have fought with the wind against us from the beginning. We have overcome the difficulties and again we are given a situation difficult to accept. The players deserve to pass the round”

And Falcao says the following:

‘To tell you the truth, the process leaves a lot of doubts. He only spoke English, some bias was certain. Through small calls he was pushing us [toward] our goal, that was clear for me.’

‘The referee disturbed us a lot, in the 50-50 plays, he always made the calls in favor of England. This situation was undermining us. He didn’t act with the same criteria for both teams. When in doubt he always went to the England side. It’s shameful that this happens in the round of 16 of a World Cup.’

Obviously with hindsight of re-watching the game later it is easy to point out the failings of the comments of the coach and captain from the aftermath and emotions in the moment. Arguably with a stronger and a more streamlined VAR process Falcao would have been sent off. The referee blew for several fouls on Falcao but not as many as he committed. There was only one 50-50 challenge in the whole game where the decision went to England, it was a simple toe to toe challenge that looked worse than it was, deep in the England half and the referee penalised Colombia. The English yellow cards were given for very minor fouls, whereas some of the Colombian yellow cards were given where red would have been the norm. There was one incident where Stones appears to graze Falcao’s head with his boot. There is no quote afterwards about this and at the time although Falcao rolled over and over a number of times there was no visible damage to his head; not the same as the Henderson case where you could see blood on the face from Barrios’ head butt. It is possible that Stones made no contact at all, as the Colombian theatrics were a theme of the whole game and the leader of that was Falcao himself. Falcao finally received a yellow card after the umpteenth indiscretion as he harassed the referee over a decision that Falcao got completely wrong. Maguire went down in the Colombian penalty area and did not plead for a penalty. In fact, he signals to the referee there is no contact, yet Falcao screams after the referee for a yellow card to be given to Maguire for simulation; Falcao quite rightly was given the yellow for his constant harassment of the officials. This really sums up the confused state of mind of Falcao and Peckerman during and after the game. The evidence of the number of fouls and yellow cards they were given only reinforces that there was probably a clear strategy from the management to disrupt the game in the exact way that Peckerman describes in his own comments. It is as if their own tactic backfired on them and then the referee became the scapegoat, even though he did exactly what Peckerman and Falcao wanted, to slow down the English rhythm of the game.

Only a yellow for a head-butt that drew blood. It's hard to say the referee was strongly against Colombia on that evidence.

The comment about being wary of the referees whistle is also misleading. Despite Barrios getting the yellow card in the first half he went on to foul several more times and did not receive a second yellow. There is clear evidence that through Peckerman’s very comments the bias was actually in favour of Colombia and the wind was very much with them and not against them with the decisions of the US referee; not receiving a red card for a head butt being the most obvious, but more subtly the constant fouling was left unpunished with yellow and red cards, although to be fair Peckerman's argument is that the referee should not blow up for fouls at all as it ruins the flow of the game. Peckerman spent the whole match alongside his coach who Sterling accused of shouting abuse throughout the game. He may not have been aware of the deliberate shove and then the cheeky smile afterwards as he got away with trying to incite Sterling as he walked off, but he would have been aware that his own coaching staff were trying to disrupt English players on the pitch.

One great contrast of the first half was the battle between Sterling and Mina. Sterling only 1.7m tall and Mina 1.94m tall. Sterling won most of the battles but two incidents sum up the way Colombia approached the half. At one point the enormous frame of Mina mounts Sterling, visually creating a horrible mismatch that you might see in a school yard piggy back race. Then just before the end of the half, Mina has both hands on Sterling pulling him down, as Sterling grabs Mina’s shorts to get out of his grip, Mina throws himself dramatically to the ground. A VAR review could well have given Sterling a penalty and Mina a yellow card for simulation. Instead the fortune lies again with Colombia as nothing was given.

On the local expat forums the Colombian’s simply repeated the same faulty arguments that the referee was biased and the game was stolen from them. Taxi drivers, friends, family, acquaintances were not tongue in cheek when they complained about the rough English side and the injustices that Colombia had suffered. And so it went on and on, until the relief of the Croatia game that England lost, was widely celebrated as justice for their own defeat. Never have I witnessed such a mean spirited side of the Colombian culture, such a hateful, vengeful side to their character, which is not explained in any guidebook or any of the psychobabble by the Colombian media that are trying to deconstruct their passion for football. It became unpleasant to be around anyone, even bring up the World Cup. The realization that we had one more game to play just made it worse. When the ITV.com streaming failed again as I was forced to watch the Colombian channel RCN to see the Belgium v England play off. It was excruciating to say the least. The same nonsense that started with the commentators on the day of the Colombia game, that then permeated through the coach and captain and then into the psyche of the public was still ever present. On a normal day it is very hard to listen to what can best be described as town criers that perhaps once played in the equivalent level of the 10th rung on the English league system. It is not by contrast a case a listening to ex-world cup winners or ex-golden boot scorers within the likes of the BBC or ITV commentary panels. I wondered as the deluge of a stream of consciousness poured out whether I should just completely mute the sound, but it seemed like a penance, a message that I had to suffer until the very end; the full Colombian anger and frustration until it was finally 90 minutes. Apart from the complete lack of understandings of the basics of the game the thing that most riled me was that every time Kane got the ball they would say he was Harry the “sucio”, dirty in Spanish. Then after about 30 minutes I am not sure if one of them Googled the translation, the commentators started to say it in English, Harry the “Dirty”. For a moment I thought maybe they were trying to be clever and make a reference to the great series of Clint Eastwood films, but not once did they actually say "Dirty Harry", so I could not even credit these footballing imposters with the slight amount of wit that would have made their catchphrase a little more plausible. It bordered on the bizarre. Harry Kane would be fouled, pushed or clipped to the ground, they would then literally say there is a foul on Harry the “Dirty”. Reviewing the Colombian v England game, Harry Kane made one innocuous foul in the entire game so it is beyond the understanding of a basic footballing brain to fathom how they came to the conclusion that they did.

The final headlines that I read about talked about justice for Stones which were brought about by his press conference where he quite rightly said Colombia were a dirty team. He went too far saying they were the worst ever but they almost certainly carried out team orders to try and incite, foul, act and generally wind up the atmosphere as best they could. The English commentary on the game concluded it was done as they were the lesser team, I don’t believe that being more familiar with their players, but they definitely for whatever reason did not play well on that day. A whole 46 minutes passed before they had their first shot which was a tame pass to the goal keeper from the outside of the box. And then their second shot was after 81 minutes when Walker gifted Cuadrado their clearest chance of the whole game. Colombia played badly and the blame should lie with the captain and coach, the former like a whirligig of emotional abuse who showed nothing of his footballing talent and the other a calculated tactician of dirty tricks and spin.

However the headlines were believed in Colombia and they satiated the appetites for cold revenge, not just for the comments by Stones and not just for an awkward camera angle that appears to show English players celebrating in the faces of Colombians, although they were not, but because of The Sun. The Sun in their wisdom published on the day of the game a cryptic headline about Shakira, Coffee and other Colombian stuff, clearly making a reference to cocaine. It was this after all the arguments were debunked that everyone finally came back to, that it was a disgusting insult to Colombia that they are spoken of in these terms. In the local media, in their own articles the frustration of going out at this as a stage was very much seen as a hope to project Colombia away from the realities of being the largest cocaine producer and one of the most violent and corrupt societies in the world. The idea as one journalist put it was to shift the ice breaker of a conversation with someone unfamilair with Colombia to be about football and not about Narcos.

But for me the Colombian’s blew it. Not just in the footballing sense but in the moral sense as they showed their very worst side, the very heart of what corruption is which is do something wrong and then try and say your adversary did it and not you. In a country where it is all too common that people in power are corrupt, the reflex is to say the same in every situation one deems to be unfair, hence in this case we lost, it's not our fault, FIFA are corrupt. There is no doubt that the English did not play the perfect game, with all the chances they created out of a positive approach they did not connect and score in open play. It is also clear as Southgate put it that they have wizened up. When Henderson was head butted he went to ground, there was no need to do so, his injury was only a cut lip not concussion. These things are regrettable, but not in the same league as miserly losers, full of angst, poor wit and bile until the end of the tournament. People outside of Colombia would have seen much more than the frustrated comments of Falcao, the man who literally brought nothing to the tournament, they will all sadly read about how some of the greatest players in the world tried to cheat and frustrate their opponent and in such a novel way that it will be hard to forget that Colombia on that fateful day thought they were involved in Gardener’s World, planting new ways of cheating by scuffing the penalty spot, instead of being the legends on the highlights of Match of the Day. It is sad that the first thought that comes to an English hack editors mind is Shakira, coffee and cocaine, but it is sadder that the reputation of a great team and a great country has again been tarnished and the image of an ugly, violent and corrupt culture being reinforced. For that there are only Colombian footballers and their fans to blame.

The final word should be left to The Sun, after a complaint from the Colombian ambassador about the headline before the game they published an apology of sorts the following morning:

"The front page of yesterday's Sun may have given the impression that Colombia is well known for its cocaine trade. This was unfair on the Colombian people, who are far more embarrassed by the way their cheating, fouling, play acting, mean-spirited national football team played last night. We are happy to set the record straight."