Andres Escobar had already returned to Medellín when Santiago Escobar was startled awake at 2 a.m. in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 2, 1994. The family had planned to tour the United States while following Colombia into the knockout round of the World Cup, but Colombia had gone out in the group stage.
“After 32 years, I still cry for him,” Santiago said of his younger brother. He described how Andrés’ own goal against the U.S. on June 22, in Colombia’s second game, left the family stunned, especially after the 3-1 loss to Romania had already put the squad under pressure.
Las Vegas at 2 a.m.
Santiago was in Las Vegas when the ringing telephone jolted him. By then, Andrés had traveled back to Medellín instead of staying with his family. Pamela Cascardo was finishing dental school there, which placed him back in the city where the story turned darkest.
That sequence matters because it shows the gap between the trip the family expected and the reality they faced after Colombia’s exit. The return to Medellín was not a pause before another match. It was the end of the World Cup run and the start of a different kind of aftermath.
Rose Bowl pressure
The pressure around Colombia had been building before the U.S. match at the Rose Bowl. Gabriel Gómez and Francisco Maturana had received death threats hours before kickoff, and the threats appeared on the television sets inside the hotel room of every member of the squad.
A day before that match, the older brother of Luis Herrera was killed in a car accident in Colombia. Santiago placed that stretch against the previous decade, when the country had spent years grappling with war between the state and the myriad narco-terrorist cartels. The tournament was never only about football.
Milan and Medellín
Andrés had started every game for Colombia at the 1990 World Cup, and Milan had targeted him before 1994 as a possible successor to Franco Baresi. Santiago said his brother believed the own goal had ended that opportunity. Andrés told him, “Never in my life had I scored an own goal and I had to go and do it in the middle of a World Cup”.
Santiago answered, “Forget about that. Milan have been watching you for a year or two now. They don’t sign you based on one or two games”. Andrés still replied, “They’re not going to sign me anymore”. That exchange turned one mistake into something heavier: a 13-year professional career suddenly measured against one moment, and a return to Medellín that carried all of it home.
