{"id":17884,"date":"2014-07-03T15:17:18","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T07:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=17884"},"modified":"2014-07-03T15:17:18","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T07:17:18","slug":"elation-over-world-cup-success-brings-a-beaming-rarely-seen-face-of-unity-among-colombians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/07\/03\/elation-over-world-cup-success-brings-a-beaming-rarely-seen-face-of-unity-among-colombians\/","title":{"rendered":"Elation over World Cup success brings a beaming, rarely seen face of unity among Colombians"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"football<\/a><\/p>\n

BOGOTA, Colombia\u2014The euphoria in soccer-mad Colombia is deafening, and wonderfully contagious, ahead of Friday\u2019s do-or-die World Cup match against host Brazil.<\/p>\n

Never before has the star-crossed nation made the quarterfinals. Some are even waxing poetic about World Cup unity accelerating the pace of 18-month-old peace talks to end a half-century of conflict that has claimed some 220,000 lives.<\/p>\n

Half the population seems to be wearing the canary-yellow national jersey, even on days Colombia isn\u2019t playing. And the merrymaking, from singing in the streets to collective game-watching on huge screens in public parks, is often so unrestrained that many big-city mayors have imposed bans on alcohol sales on game days.<\/p>\n

The fear, of course, is that it all will be fleeting and the violence and intolerance that have long plagued the Andean nation will re-emerge at the tournament\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoccer has always worked as a tool of union and a tool for nation-building,\u201d said Alexander Castro, a National University sociologist. \u201cBut soccer is also as ephemeral as a particular game. And when this World Cup ends it will be like a passing fad, and we\u2019ll be back to our old habits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not since Colombia drubbed Argentina 5-0 in a 1993 World Cup qualifier has the South American nation of 48 million been so enthralled by the beautiful game.<\/p>\n

\u201cColombia is going to make it to the final because it has the fundamentals and preparation, and (the players) have great courage and desire,\u201d said Leonardo Soto, a 23-year-old paralegal in Bogota.<\/p>\n

No country\u2019s fan base is apparently as dedicated as Colombia. Out of 19 surveyed in a pre-World Cup poll done by YouGov.com for The New York Times. Just 6 per cent of Colombians weren\u2019t interested in the game, followed by Mexico with 8 per cent and Argentina with 10 per cent. The United States, by contrast, had at 60-per cent apathy rating.<\/p>\n

President Juan Manuel Santos is among the devoted, and planned to attend Friday\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n

The Colombian team\u2019s unselfish poise and grace are about the only thing Santos and his political nemesis, ex-President Alvaro Uribe, can agree on these days as they spar over the handling peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.<\/p>\n

And even the leftist FARC has claimed a stake in the national cheering section. Before the tourney, rebel negotiators sent the team a letter that gushed \u201cwith people like you, we\u2019re sure to go far.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aldo Civico, a Rutgers University anthropologist and conflict resolution expert, says \u201cthe joyful and intense expression of unity\u201d around the Colombian team\u2019s four-game winning streak has let people \u201ctranscend the political tribalism\u201d that has defined Colombia\u2019s violent history.<\/p>\n

It reminded him, he said, of how Nelson Mandela used South Africa\u2019s love of rugby as a tool of post-apartheid reconciliation.<\/p>\n

The fear, of course, is that, lacking a Mandela, the unity will evaporate after the last referee\u2019s whistle sounds.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Michael Zimbalist, who with his brother Jeffrey made the 2010 documentary \u201cThe Two Escobars\u201d about Colombian professional soccer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s heartwarming, said brother Jeffrey, how football extends to a country\u2019s sense of identity and has allowed the world to see a special side of Colombia it hadn\u2019t known.<\/p>\n

Which is not to say that either brother believes drug money is all gone from the sport.<\/p>\n

In 2006, a drug trafficker affiliated with far-right militias named Gustavo Upegui was slain in his bedroom by a gun-wielding intruder.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In fact, that player currently leads all World Cup scorers with five goals.<\/p>\n

His name: James Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Libardo Cardona reported this story in Bogota and Frank Bajak reported from Lima, Peru. AP writer Cesar Garcia in Bogota contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOGOTA, Colombia\u2014The euphoria in soccer-mad Colombia is deafening, and wonderfully contagious, ahead of Friday\u2019s do-or-die World Cup match against host …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":17887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","mauthors-libardo-cardona","mauthors-frank-bajak","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}