This does no good.'"Įventually, the players were escorted to the prison soccer field, which was lit for the night. He said to me, 'Why do you yell at the refs so much, Guapo? We pay them. "He sat next to me talking about (soccer) with great passion and knowledge, for an hour. "That day I can't forget," says Pareja, 20 years younger than his host. He treated Pareja like a visiting god, calling him by his nickname, El Guapo. And it made me wonder, 'Who, exactly, is the prisoner here today?'"Įscobar, then 42, took a seat on the couch next to Pareja. And then a bunch of bodyguards came into the room, and then (Escobar). "There were fine couches in there," remembers Pareja.
Pareja and his teammates were escorted into an ornate sitting room, where they waited, nervously, for the bloodiest man in Colombian history. From it, Escobar continued to carry on his billion-dollar cocaine business. It sat on a cool hill and was lavish - with jacuzzis, a gym and a fully lit soccer field. La Catedral hung over Medellin like Olympus. What else could the coach do? "For all we knew, we were partly owned by him (Escobar)." "Coach said practice was canceled," remembers Pareja, now 43. So Pareja said yes, even though it was the middle of the season. The year before, he had ordered the executions of no less than three Colombian presidential candidates for not seeing things his way. Escobar had ordered the murder of thousands - police captains, business owners and judges.
Declining Escobar's invitation would be tantamount to signing his death certificate. What happened next Pareja has never shared with any of his three kids, nor any of the players he's coached, nor any reporters. Escobar would like him and six of his Independiente teammates to come to Escobar's one-man, government-built luxury prison - La Catedral - and play a game. Twenty years ago, Oscar Pareja was the star and captain of Independiente Medellin in Colombia, in the time when murderous drug czar Pablo Escobar terrorized the country. Pareja knows what tense is, and you're not within 10 stadiums of it. To make Oscar Pareja laugh, tell him that he'll be coaching a "tense" game this weekend for the Colorado Rapids of the MLS.
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