Even before kick-off, there were indications that Argentina's 1993 World Cup qualifier match against Colombia would be a memorable match. Shortly before the match began, an Argentine airliner flew overhead, nearly shattering the monumental stadium in River Plate. It avoided a catastrophic collision with the St. Martin stand by a few meters — all because, as the pilot later admitted, he wanted to give the passengers on board a unique perspective of the more than 70,000 spectators who watched the crucial match.
The danger set the tone for the most memorable day in colombian football history, when they beat their famous South American rivals 5-0, locking up their place at the 1994 World Cup and forcing the 1990 finalists to play play-offs against Australia. A few years later, former Argentine striker Ramón Medina Bello recalled: "It was talked about a lot. The pilots were even grounded. 'At that time, he formed the team's attacking partner with Gabriel Batistuta. Did I see it pass? I didn't see a Colombian all night and you asked me to see a plane. And the hero who caused this shocking result, or one of Colombia's many heroes, or rather, the midfielder "giant" Freddie Rincon. The former Santa Fe, Palmeiras, Corinthians, Napoli and Real Madrid ace suffered a serious head injury in a car accident in Cali and died last week at the age of 55.
In the 41st minute, with an assist from Valderrama, Sergio Goycochea opened the scoring and after half-time assisted Faustino Asprila's goal to rewrite the score to 2-0. Rincon scored his third goal for Colombia and Argentina's confidence was shattered, with further goals from Asprira and Adolf Valencia leading to historic defeats for the home team. It was the pinnacle of Colombia's greatest generation, a team that reached three consecutive World Cup finals and became legendary with their exciting, delightful and irreproducible football.
Rincon is at the heart of the team, along with memorable characters like "Valderrama, the explosive Asprila and the mad goalkeeper Iquita – the inventor of the Scorpion Kick and one of the first modern sweeper goalkeepers, whose free-kick ability and occasional disastrous penchant for hitting forwards have made him a fanatic in world football." Rincon traveled to Italy for the first time since 1962 to compete in the World Cup with the rest of the Colombian team, when he was only 23 years old. He remained with the team during subsequent trips to the United States and France – making him and Valdlamar one of the few Colombians in history to have played in the biggest tournament in football history three times.
Colombia's fast, free-flowing style of play, from Iquita at the back to Rincon, Asprila and Valencia in attack, coupled with the booster played by Valdlama, was a breath of fresh air at a time when there was an overemphasis on tight formations and defensive tactics. Francisco "Pacho" Maturana is a respectable coach who ran the team from 1994 to 1998 and whose mission is to change not only his team, but the image of the country as a whole. As we all know, Pacho, like Rincon, often sought the advice of wizards, who, according to legend, reduced his intensity during his game in the United States after being warned that a Colombian star would be seriously injured in the World Cup.
"I remember when we went to Europe in 1988, even in Italy in '90. Most of the time, press conferences are about Escobar (Colombia's number one drug lord), assassinations, drug trafficking... Nobody asked about football," Mathulana explains, "and at that time, we decided on a new way of playing... Until then, the national team's game plan was to try to silence the opponent. You used to be exhausted at the end of a race because you were running, in tears, and felt like you hadn't played at all. We tell each other: 'Let's go out and play football.' We'll find a way to relax ourselves when we're in possession. That approach paid off in another landmark game of Colombia's first golden generation. Rincon's brilliant goal in the 93rd minute brought Colombia to a 1-1 draw with 1990 World Cup champions West Germany in the group stage, a result that locked the team's knockout qualification. 'We don't play for fun, our goal is always to score goals and several coaches have noticed that.
However, despite the best efforts of Mathulana and his team, Colombia's story will always be tragic. In 1990, Iquita made a terrible mistake when he foolishly landed on the strip after being snatched by Uncle Mira and hit the empty goal, allowing cameroonians to step on them to advance to the quarter-finals. Four years later, there are still high hopes that they will compete with the best teams in the world and even lift the trophy directly – even without their goalkeeper, the goalkeeper who went to jail for 9 months on suspicion of involvement in the mediation of the kidnapping and did not travel to the United States.
Instead, the Trip to the World Cup proved to be a complete disaster, a fact that, as Matulana put it, was the bitter fruit of the team's lax discipline in the formation process: "When the World Cup was about something else, it was like we were having a party. "After just two matches, the loss to Romania and the hosts determined the fate of the country, making the next 2-0 win over Switzerland irrelevant. Five days later, the team's main defender, Andres Escobar, was shot dead in a nightclub parking lot in his hometown of Medellín, a murder that infuriated Colombian society and greatly undermined Escobar and his teammates' efforts to save the country's image in the eyes of the world.
Rincon himself was arrested in Brazil in 2007 on suspicion of drug trafficking, as did teammate Antonio de Ávila in 1994, who is currently serving a sentence in an Italian prison on drug charges. In 2004, Albero Usuriaga was shot seven times in Cali and killed. Ussuriaga's goal helped Colombia qualify for the 1990 World Cup. Another player, Hernan Gaviria, was killed by lightning while training in 2002, when he was only 32 years old. But despite this grief, the terrible end of the 1994 World Cup and the cowardly farewell four years later, another knockout first-round exit – the first generation of the golden generation still occupies a precious place in the hearts of Colombians, and triggers unlimited debate, until J Ronaldo, Cuadrado, Ospina and others have gradually surpassed the achievements of their predecessors in recent years.
Maybe Valdhrama, Rincon, Asprila and his team ultimately failed to reach the heights they could have reached, but the legend between them brought a fading football nation back to life. Before that, Colombia had never played against the best team in the world, showing boundless joy and enthusiasm at every touch of the ball and winning, while giving hope to the whole country, although this hope was short-lived, the seeds they planted in people's hearts would eventually overcome the disappointment and suffering caused by violence, drugs and economic recession, and blossom in the wind in the future.