Mistakes in sports happen everyday, but Colombia's Andres Escobar paid for his with his life. Heavily favored to win the World Cup on June 23, 1994, Colombia lost in a shocking 2-1 upset to the United States after Escobar, attempting to block a shot, kicked the ball into his team's own net.
10 days after the match, Escobar was partying with friends at Restaurante el Indio in Medellin, when three people began shouting insults at him — and the situation quickly escalated into deadly violence. "All of a sudden, we heard gunfire, and then Escobar was on the ground, groaning and clutching his chest," witness Jorge Arango said (via Time), with one of the perpetrators reportedly saying, "Thanks for the auto-goal, you son of a b***h." Escobar died 45 minutes later after being shot 12 times. He was just 27 years old.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Colombian authorities believed that drug traffickers who lost big on the game marked Escobar for death. The perpetrator in question, Humberto Munoz Castro, was sentenced to 42 years in prison, but was released after only 11, per Fox News.
A year after his death, Escobar's family created the Andres Escobar Social Project, a soccer program for disadvantaged youth. "We are not trying to produce great soccer players–rather, great human beings," his father said (via the Los Angeles Times). "The school's main objective is to teach children values so that they say no to drugs and to theft."
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7XCpKCsr5mbwW%2BvzqZmbWhpaoVxe8Keo56aop7BqrHSZq6hp12ssrOxjKasq5yVp7KlecGyZK2glZ6%2FbrvWp2SfmZ6ofA%3D%3D