Melles documentary blog

9. The review   In this last entry i'm going to give my opinion about the documentary.  I think that the documentary shows very good how Pablo Escobar took power over the whole country Colombia and the Colombian football as well. The documentary shows also how loved Pablo Escobar is by the Colombian people, because of his Robin Hood-actions. It was beautiful to see how the Colombian national football team influenced the Colombian people. In the time that the Colombian soccer team played good and won their games the Colombian people are happy and proud of their country. Colombia was known as a country full of danger and violence, when the Colombian team played good they changed the image of their country. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this documentary a 9. I found it very interesting and I could watch it to if it wasn't an school-assignment. A minus of the documentary was that there weren't videos with Pablo Escobars conversations in it. I am very curious about how Pablo Esc...

8. The murder of Andres Escobar Meanwhile Pablo Escobar rules Colombia, the Colombian soccer team is doing very well. They won almost every game with as icing on the cake a 5-0 victory over Argentina. When Colombia qualified for the 1994 World Cup football-legend Pele said that Colombia was his favorite for winning the cup. This statement caused a lot of pressure on the Colombian team. After Pablo escobars death Colombia was a country full of chaos en violence. After the first game that Colombia lost against Romania the brother of Colombian player Chonto Herrera was killed. (source:  this article about Colombia on the World Cup 1994 The next game against The United States was a very important game, because Colombia had to win to go to the next round. Before the game started the players were all in the hotel when a video started playing on the tv-screen. In the video was a message: There will be bad consequences if Gabriel Gomez plays. All the players received death threats, so the...

7. King Pablo Escobar Pablo Escobar controlled everything, the Colombian people, the Colombian football clubs, even the police! I was shocked by how much power a man like Pablo Escobar can gain. When a cop worked against Pablo Escobar or when a referee disadvantaged Pablo's football team, he killed them. He had the money and the prestige to bribe everyone. When I searched information about how much power Escobar had, I found  an article named King of the Jungle . The article said Pablo Escobar had a private zoo with more than 200 animals including Elephants and Camels. He had also Hippopotamuses that left behind after Escobars death. The hippopotamuses multiplied until they were 40 in 2016. The animals cauted nuisance, this made me laugh. I thought about what if a man in the Netherlands would control everything by bribing and threaten many people. The thought of this was frightening. Escobars was the boss over all the people in Colombia. When Escobars died in 1993 his partner Popey...

6. Pablo Escobar's actions Pablo Escobar had to clear his name, he realized that he needs to be popular with the people in the poor neighborhoods. He built schools, paved roads, facilitated access to clean water, provided healthcare, supported churches and in invested in affordable houses (source:  this article about drug lords doing good things ). The poor Colombian citizens saw Escobar as a Robin Hood-figure. His funeral was attented by more than 25.000 people (source:  wikipedia ). I therefore believe that Pablo Escobar is beside a drug lord and a murderer super smart. Because of his good deeds all the Colombian citizens supported him, because of this he could ask all citizens for a favour. Not the president but Escobar itself had the most power over the Colombian people.  Do you want to go to the next entry?  Click here

  1. Choosing the documentary When  I had to choose a documentary to watch, I scrolled through hundreds of documentaries and I saw the text THE TWO ESCOBARS and the picture below. This picture and title took my attention, because I know one Escobar is: Pablo Escobar. He was a very rich man who lived in the past century. He was the boss of a drug cartel which. At his best time Escobar earned 61 million dollar every day. Escobar's job wasn't only about drugs, he was also involved by 8000 murders. But my biggest question was: Why is there a picture of a football and why is the title ‘The TWO Escobars’? Do you want to know more about Pablo Escobars crazy life? Watch the video below.  Do you want to go to the next entry?  Click here

5. Every club has his own drug lord In the eighties en nineties Pablo Escobar wasn't the only drug lord in Colombia. These drug lords had a lot of money, all earned by illegal activities. The drug lords had to legalize the money that they earned. What was the best place for money laundering? Football! All the drug lords owned their own football clubs (source: This video about drug cartels in the Colombian football ). Jhon Jairo Velasquez (better known as Popeye and he was one of Escobar's partners )  said about this: 'Soccer became a tug-of-war among the drug lords'. The drug lord 'El Mexicano' with his Millionarios, Pablo Escobar with Medellin et Atletico Nacional and Miguel Rodriquez with America de Cali. I am amazed how easy drug lords can take over a whole country and it shows how much power and influence these drug lords had on Colombian football and on Colombia itself (read more about drug lords in the politics in the next entry).  Do you want to go to the...

4. Rene Higuita In the documentary I saw that Andres Escobar played for Atletico Nacional. I didn't know the club, until I saw the goalkeeper. He was an imposing figure with long hair. I recognized him immediately. His name? Rene Higuita. I know him, because I have socks with him on it (see the picture below). Rene Higuita his nickname is El Loco (the madman). He is not for nothing named El Loco, Higuita loved to take risks. On 6 september 1995 Colombia played against England. Jamie Redknapp took a shot and Rene Higuita stopped the ball with an unbelievable scorpion kick (see the video below). I thought: Would I dare to stop the ball with a scorpion kick? And I knew that I never would do something like this (even if I had the skills). Especially because just a year before this match a Colombian player was killed for making an own goal. If Higuita's scorpion kick failed, he risked being killed too. Do you want to go to the next entry?  Click here

3. The story of Andres Escobar Andres grew up in the city of Medellin. I'm familair with the name Medellin, so I searched for some more information about this city. Escobar's drug-cartel was established in Medellin. Andres Escobar played football all his childhood. In 1987 was Andres included in the selection of the team Atletico Nacional from Medellin. He was also good at school, so he had to choose between finishing his studies or playing football at Atletico Nacional. And I thought: what should I choose if I was in his situation? I think that I also would have chosen for football, because it's the thing that Andres and I like to do the most. Choosing for football is also a big risk. Many players don't make it to the first team, don't get offered a new contract, have no job and haven't finished their studies. In Andres Escobar's case his choice was good, because soon he became one of the star-players from Atletico Nacional and got invited for the national ...

 2. Who is the second Escobar? Now we know who Pablo Escobar is, but the title says that there are two Escobars. This made me curious, so I clicked on the title and the description popped up. The description said this: The Two Escobars  reveals the surprising parallels between Colombian soccer team captain Andres Escobar and international drug lord Pablo Escobar. I opened Google and I searched some information about Andres Escobar. I saw he died in 1994 when he was only 27 years old and he was murdered because of an own goal that he made on the World Cup 1994. At that moment I realized that I know Andres Escobar, because once my dad told me a story about a Colombian football player who was killed, because he made an own goal. In this video you see the own goal that Andres Escobar made in 1994. Do you want to go to the next entry?  Click here