Murder of Andrés Escobar

Andrés Escobar Saldarriaga was a Colombian professional footballer born in Medellín on 13 March 1967. Known as El Caballero del Fútbol (The Gentleman of Football) for his calm, clean style of play, he was a centre-back for Atlético Nacional, Swiss club BSC Young Boys, and the Colombia national team, and helped Atlético Nacional win the 1989 Copa Libertadores. He played for Colombia at the 1990 FIFA World Cup and was called up again for the 1994 tournament in the United States.

During Colombia's second group match of the 1994 World Cup, against host nation the United States, Escobar stretched to block a cross and inadvertently deflected the ball into his own net, giving the U.S. a lead in an eventual 2–1 win. Colombia went on to defeat Switzerland 2–0 in its final group match, but the United States' 1–0 loss to Romania in the concurrent match eliminated Colombia from the tournament, finishing at the bottom of Group A.

After the tournament, Escobar chose to return to Colombia rather than visit relatives in the United States. On the evening of 1 July 1994, five days after Colombia's elimination, he went out with friends in Medellín, visiting a bar in the El Poblado neighbourhood, a liquor store, and the El Indio nightclub. After his friends split up, Escobar was alone in the nightclub's parking lot at about 3:00 a.m. on 2 July when three men approached and argued with him. Two of the men drew handguns and shot Escobar six times with a .38-caliber revolver; one of them reportedly shouted ¡Gol! (Goal!) after each shot. The men then fled in a pickup truck, leaving Escobar mortally wounded. He died in a hospital about 45 minutes later, at age 27. His killing was widely believed to be retaliation for the own goal.

Humberto Castro Muñoz, who worked as a bodyguard for a drug cartel in Colombia, was arrested the night of the killing and confessed to it the next day. Castro was also employed as a driver for a man reported to have lost heavily betting on Colombia's World Cup results, an additional motive theory reported alongside the own goal. He was found guilty of Escobar's murder in June 1995 and sentenced to 43 years in prison; his three co-accused were acquitted. The sentence was reduced to 26 years in 2001 after Castro submitted to the ruling penal code, and he was released in 2005 on good behaviour, with further reductions credited to prison work and study. In 2013, a former coach of Escobar's publicly disputed any connection between the killing and football, attributing it instead to Colombia's broader climate of violence at the time.

Escobar's funeral was attended by more than 120,000 people, and mourners have continued to bring his photograph to matches every year in his memory; he remains especially honoured by Atlético Nacional's fans. Medellín unveiled a statue in his memory in July 2002, and his family founded the Andrés Escobar Project to help disadvantaged children learn to play football. His death and Colombia's 1994 campaign were later examined in the 2010 ESPN documentary The Two Escobars, and his life was dramatized in the 2022 Netflix mini-series Goles en contra.