Pablo Escobar had one obsession. Not drugs, not money, not power... football.
Narcoball uncovers the incredible story of Colombian football during the early 1990s - shaped by drug lords, rivalries, and ambition. It uncovers a football empire backed by cartels - where victory was a currency of its own, and defeat, a matter of life and death.
This is a different story of Pablo Escobar and his rivals. A tale of clandestine deals that reshaped Medellin's football clubs, where fortunes were won and lost. It unveils the extraordinary bonds that Escobar forged with football's luminaries and why his influence reached unprecedented heights, leading to the astonishing 5-0 victory over Argentina in Buenos Aires, the murder of referees, and the ruthless coercion of officials culminating in the killing of Andrés Escobar - the Colombian defender who paid the ultimate price for an own goal in the 1994 World Cup. It is also an examination of a people's relationship with both the sport and the nefarious leaders that brought both pride and terror to their communities.
Set against the U.S War on Drugs, international threats, and government clampdowns, this is a gripping exploration of Colombian club football under Escobar's rise and fall.
For about 80% of the book, the text is more a biography of Pablo Escobar than a study of “Narcoball,” with only occasional references to the latter. Some years ago I had read Mark Bowden’s book Killing Pablo, so I knew the broad outline of Escobar’s life. For this book I was more interested in the football corruption aspect.
Basically the author explains how by the mid-1980s, the four dominant clubs in the Colombian league were all backed by the financial muscle of the drug cartels. Partly the cartels become involved with football because it provided good opportunities for money laundering. However, like many Colombians, Escobar and the other cartel bosses were also genuine football fans. Even in later years when he was on the run, Escobar would don a disguise to attend matches of his favourite team, Atlético Nacional of Medellín. The money provided by the cartels not only made the clubs dominant in Colombia, but also serious contenders for the club championship of South America, the Copa Libertadores. The rise of the Colombian clubs coincided with something of a golden age for the Colombian national team, when players like Carlos Valderrama, René Higuita, and Faustino Asprilla became global stars.
I was generally familiar with the story of the Colombian national team in this period. I can recall some of their matches in the 1990 and 1994 World Cup Finals, as well as the famous qualifier played in Buenos Aires in 1993. I didn’t know anything about the club teams so it was fun listening to the story of what happened in some of their big matches.
The most interesting part was probably around the corruption. I don’t know why anyone would have wanted to stick it out as a referee in Colombia at the time. Anyone who has seen the TV show Narcos will probably know that, when the cartels wanted something, they offered a choice of “plata o plomo” - silver or lead. This included occasions when they wanted their teams to win a big match, and the second of those two choices was no idle threat.
I supposed many people will have heard of the aftermath of the 1994 World Cup, and what happened to Andrés Escobar. There were some other incidents I hadn’t known about, including an extraordinary entrapment scheme laid by the Colombian government to ensnare René Higuita. At least that’s how the author describes it.
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, football (soccer for American sports fans, but this review will call it football) in Columbia was ruled, just like the country, by the powerful drug cartels. One man personified this era for both the sport and the political landscape – Pablo Escobar. His story of ruthlessness, riches and eventual death is told in this excellent book by David Arrowsmith.
The book centers on Escobar’s main two loves – power and football. For the former, the reader will read about Escobar’s rise through the organized crime network that supplied many nations, especially the United States, with cocaine. It didn’t matter who may have stood in his way, Escobar would find a way to either take them over or have them eliminated. This sadly led to much violence and crime in the country and especially in Escobar’s hometown of Medellin.
As for the football, Escobar and other drug lords and cartels were the financial backing for most of the Columbian teams. This grew out of Escobar’s love for the game early on and grew until he controlled several clubs and had an extended influence on the Columbian national team. They improved each year and played in the two World Cups during the time frame of the book, 1990 and 1994. In 1990, Columbia did advance out of group play but lost their first game in the knockout round to eventual champion West Germany. Thanks to even more financing (and the crime and threats that go with it), the 1994 was even stronger and expected to go far in the tourney.
By now, Arrowsmith has painted a complete picture of not only Escobar’s crimes, power and downfall. This led to his death in 1993, before the 1994 World Cup. However, many cartels and leaders still were influencing the sport, but they would soon decline and by the late 1990’s their influence was practically nil. However, there was one more tragic event that came about due to this combination of crime, power and football. The 1994 Columbia team didn’t advance out of group play, with the most stunning loss coming at the hands of the host USA team 2-1. The first USA goal was an own goal by the excellent Columbian defender Andres Escobar (no relation to Pablo). After the tournament was over and the Columbian team returned home, Andres Escobar was murdered after going to a nightclub with friends. The reason was never confirmed and there are a few theories behind the death as Arrowsmith points out, but it did show the power of “narcoball” – the term used for this era of Columbian football.
I wish to thank the publisher for providing a review copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
Narcoball uncovers the incredible story of Colombian football during the ealy 1990s. Pablo Escobar wasn't just Colombian drug lord, he also had a obsession for football. There has always been deals and money involved in football, but Pablo Escobar also brought another thing a long 'Death'. The book goes into the length that Pablo Escobar would go to to get the results he wanted and nobody or anything would stand in his way. The book tells us about murder of referees. as well as the murder of Colombian defender Andres Escobar who scored an own goal in 1994 World Cup. I found this a very interesting read, even though I'm not a football fan.
I've never actually watched the 30 for 30 doc The Two Escobars, but have always meant to, so when I saw this available as Read Now on Netgalley and it was discussed on one of the football podcasts I listen to, I knew I had to give this a read. It's a useful reminder that sports have often been used to "wash" dirty money in this era of sportswashing and that it never ends well for any party, whether the money being washed comes from drug lords or nation states.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.
I thought I would enjoy this book when I bought it as I love football and the idea of corruption within Columbian football due to Pablo Escobar’s influence really interested me. But off the back of two fantasy series I really enjoyed, I was worried I’d struggle to make it through a non-fiction book given there were many books I wanted to read more.
However, the book was surprisingly a page turner. Learning about Escobar’s life and the crazy things he did generally and for football was super intriguing. Makes me want to watch Narcos.
The crime and football portions of the books almost play out in different sections at a time and while that works I was expecting more of a book merging the two and probably going a bit deeper into the corruption and influence Columbian cartels had over Columbian football.
The book felt more like a biography on Escobar’s life with a sprinkle of “and now we return to the football”. Again it worked and was still enjoyable to read. Just less… coexistent than I pictured it being.
How inspiring that those players persevered at all. So interesting to learn how intertwined the cartels were with football. Colombia deserves the world
I know I am not the target demographic, I just don’t care who scored what goal in what minute in every single game ever sorry 🫶, but the rest was interesting
Here we have a football book, which is also a true crime book, one so outlandish and absurd that if it had been filmed as a piece of fiction it would have been derided for its lack of realism.
Central to the book is Pablo Escobar, a man who was more complex than I appreciated. We follow his life from his early days living in poverty, from being a fruit thief to becoming a car thief, into the world of narcotics and his ultimate demise in a shoot out whilst on the run.
He was self-styled as a man of the people and it seems that he was well liked among the poor, following Juvenal’s conceit of ‘bread and circuses’ only here he gave them football instead of the circus. Owning a football club was seen as a great way of laundering drug money and all the drug cartels got involved resulting in huge sums of dirty money being invested and a fierce rivalry developing. This worked for a while but in the end so much money was coming in that it was stashed, buried and hidden away. Treasure hunters will be looking for the missing cash for years to come. Escobar also built houses for the poor and during this period we have the paradoxical situation of doing good at home whilst poisoning people in USA with cocaine.
There is that famous story (almost certainly apocryphal) about a hotel worker seeing George Best in bed with a couple of blonds, surrounded by cash and champagne asking, “here did it all go wrong George”. Well, where did it all go wrong for Pablo? Simply an extradition treaty between Columbia and the US was signed. First Pablo tried politics but when that failed, he resorted to terrorism and any semblance of being a modern Robin Hood evaporated.
Amazingly at one point he agreed to a period of incarceration, but on his terms. He built his own ‘prison’ and provided his own security. This enabled him to smuggle in professional teams for football matches against the inmates who surprisingly (or not) usually won.
Being a book about football, inevitably the events of some matches are described. I’m a match going fan and keen reader, but I find it difficult to visualise such passages, here they are used to add flavour. The reader doesn’t need to be a keen football watcher to enjoy this most outlandish of real-life stories.
The writing style is clear, concise and well balanced. Pablo Escobar clearly became a deranged and disturbing man, but he is portrayed with some nuance rather than being flat out judgemental. His crimes are not shied away from or glorified, and I am sure readers will see parallels with the Mafia killings of judges and magistrates. It is also important to examine his crimes against the chaotic politics and economics of South American states.
The ongoing football championship in Europe, is the right moment to thing a bit more beyond the competition itself. I am far from understanding too much about the rules and the game in general, but I can see the other implications of this popular game: from national branding to political prestige, football operates sometimes like a drug to masses and elites as well.
In case of Colombia, football tells literally a drug story. Narcoball. Love, Death and Football in Escobar´s Colombia by half-Colombian, UK-based film producer David Arrowsmith offers a fascinating insight into Escobar´s obsession with football. At the height of his fame and wealth, the narcoterrorist wanted to support and win through football, a domain offering him the perfect drug he was lookinng for: money and power.
Well documented and focused on facts and biographical details, Arrowsmith is able to convene in a relatively short amount of pages, both Escobar´s adventurous life, as well as his times, the changes taking place within the football´s arena in Latin America and abroad. It´s an extraordinary efffort of concision and precision, as it offers a non-dramatic, facts-fuelled story where history meets journalism.
Narcoball is a recommended read to anyone curious to learn more about the - sometimes - bloody history of football and some of its dangerous puppeteers. Beyond those dangerous stories, football remains a sport worth watching and passionatelly answering our need for show and fair-play.
Disclaimer: Book offered as part of a book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own
Being a big football fan ( I support Liverpool F.C ) and a reader of books not only on the subject of Liverpool F.C, but also on general football subjects, I was really looking forward to this read, and It certainly did not disappoint.
Narcoball is the astonishing story of 90's Colombian football. It's a story shaped by drugs, drug lords and vicious rivalries. Pablo Escobar features heavily, as you'd expect, and this book details the great lengths he went to, to ensure he got what he wanted in the football world he inhabited.
It's a story of underhanded deals, widespread bribery and threats at all levels of Football. We hear of the muder of referees and even of the muder of a Colombian defender, following his own goal in World Cup 94.
It's a gripping story, incredibly well researched and quite eye opening. It's well written, brilliantly detailed and I read this in two sittings.
This book is absolutely first-rate. I've watched a movie on Escobar and done the tours in Medellin and Bogota, but this book added a whole new angle - Escobar's obsession with football. This was partly because football was a way to win popular support, but partly (mostly?) because he just loved football.
Arrowsmith's own love for football comes through in the description of the football matches, with the penalty shootouts particularly gripping. But you don't need to be a football fan to love this book. Anyone interested in crime or history will enjoy it. It combines the rigour of a documentary with the storytelling of a thriller: it's brimming with facts and details, and the writing is edgy, pacey, and breathless.
A breathless masterpiece - a book I have wanted to read since becoming intrigued by grainy highlights of René Higuita’s Copa Libertadores exploits on Transworld Sport, then becoming fascinated by Pibe Valderrama, Rincón et al, and as I got older, with the sceptre of Pablo Escobar at front of mind. The book is full of detailed information about Pablo Escobar, possibly even more so than Mark Bowden’s “Killing Pablo” and gives another perspective from the more accessible Netflix show Narcos. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
A book not just about football, but what was happening in Colombia during the 1980s onwards, about drug cartels ,man hunts, and murders,don't need to be a football fan to read it ,yes it does cover the different clubs and the national team results, but the chapter are broke up ,so you can always skip the "football ones" and just force on the ones about Pablo Escobar and everything else
3 of my favorite things in the world are History,True crime and Soccer. This book perfectly combines all 3. This book is really well written and researched.
Pablo Escobar was already interesting from his drug cartel to the invasive hippos but his love of football and athletico Nacional made him more
Really cool and interesting book and deserves 5 stars all the way around.
Nierówna książka. Początek to słabo napisana encyklopedia (w tym roku działo się to, a w tym roku tamto). Potem jest dużo lepiej, szczególnie historia Escobara jest opisana bardzo dynamicznie i interesująco. Natomiast dosyć szczegółowe opisy meczów klubów czy reprezentacji są mocno dla fanów futbolu. Reszta może się przy tych fragmentach nudzić.
Niesamowicie irytująca maniera wiecznego foreshadowingu, zdecydowanie zbyt długie opisy mało znaczących spotkań które tylko mają napompować rozmiar książki, ale całkiem zgrabne zilustrowanie sportswashingu w wykonaniu karteli.
More of a 2.5 star review but really didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. Very rambly in places and the narrative link between Escobar and Colombian football felt tenuous and forced a lot of the time.
Interesting enough read even if the writing style wasn’t entirely my cup of tea. A good reminder of the great Colombian teams of the past and some memorable matches and some terrifying history of an appalling man I only knew a little about.
I really enjoyed this book, it was well wrote, well researched, really captivating, didn't realise how much money Escobar had put into football clubs, both good and bad