United States Men’s National Soccer Team

While rival drug cartels warred in the streets and the countrys mangle rate climbed to highest in the world, the Colombian national soccer team set out to blaze a new image for their country. What followed was a mysteriously quick rise to glory, as the team catapulted out of decades of obscurity to become one of the best teams in the world. Central to this success were two men named Escobar Andrs, the captain and carte du jour child of the National Team, and Pablo, the infamous drug baron who pioneered the phenomenon known in the underworld as Narco-soccer. But just when Colombia was expected to win the 1994 World shape and transform its international image, the shocking murder of Andres Escobar dashed the hopes of a nation.Through the glory and the tragedy, The Two Escobars daringly investigates the secret marriage of crime and sport, and uncovers the surprising connections among the murders of Andres and Pablo. Personal StatementOur films tend to focus on disenfranchised commu nities in the process of rising up and transforming their political and economic circumstances. We choose these stories due to the exfoliation of their historic importancethis is where societies are shaped.By comparison, sports have often felt like mere diversion, games limited to the playing field. At times, we have both drifted from the furore for sports we shared as young athletes and fans, engaging ourselves in other endeavors as seasons of professional competition passed by.Then, invariably, definitive moments in sports history would grab our attention and childs play our logic upside down. Like in 1994, when an athlete named Andres Escobar was murdered for accidentally scoring an own goal that cost the Colombian National Team a chance at winning the World Cup and transforming its negative image on the international stage. Here was a country with a national indistinguishability so integrally connected to the success of its soccer team that one mistake on a playing field dash ed the pride of an full nation and cost a man his life.Looking into the incident, we learned that the dramatic rise and go under of Colombian soccer was inextricably tied to the rise and fall of Pablo Escobars Medelln Drug Cartel, considered by many the ruling party of Colombia at the time. Sport in Colombia was not only mirroring the personality and politics of nine, further also an inseparable part of that society the playing field an extension of the streets and offices where influential decisions are made.On our journey through diverse walks of Colombian society during production, it became clear that this was far from a classic deal-with-the-devil narrative. Rather, this was the story of the passions and dreams of a people intrinsically tied to the rise and fall of a team. Stories such as this bear on our childhood fascination with sports and confirm the fundamental role they play in shaping our world.