The ballad of 'El Loco' Higuita

At age 42, René Higuita is still going strong for Colombian club Deportivo Pereira, in the 'sweeper-keeper' role he helped pioneer. Michael J. LeBrecht II/1Deuce3

Reprinted from SI Latino

The man was heading to his Ford F-150 pickup truck parked in downtown Pereira, in the heart of Colombia's coffee-growing region, where he happened upon a church. "God bless them," he says, "a wedding!"

The first guests to arrive at the San José Church watch dumbfounded as the man with long curls, a white short-sleeved shirt, jeans and boots walks in. The people sitting in the front pews turn around, recognize him, and whisper among themselves. After observing the scene, the man crosses himself and leaves the church through a side door.

The same inquisitive look follows him to a red traffic light. The driver next to us observes him in awe, but doesn't say a word. Only when we arrive at a restaurant on the Avenida Circunvalar, where the sounds of Colombian band Maná and liberal pourings of Club Colombia beer seem to loosen inhibitions, an older man greets him with a loud "René!"

"This is a well-to-do neighborhood, that's why I don't get approached as much," says René Higuita, a controversial character who couldn't go unnoticed if he tried. After all, his name is linked to his nation's biggest successes and failures on the soccer field.

El Loco, the madman, led Atlético Nacional to a Copa Libertadores title -- the first for a Colombian club -- and was the backbone of Francisco Maturana's delightful national team. As a goalie, he was ahead of his time, to the point that nowadays a keeper is expected to be skilled with his feet and can even take free kicks and penalty shots. And if that weren't enough, since inventing "The Scorpion Kick," the charismatic Colombian has become the embodiment of the beautiful game.

At the same time, though, Higuita led a tumultuous private life that at times overshadowed his play: His friendship with drug lord Pablo Escobar hurt his reputation and landed him in jail; his cocaine addiction led to two suspensions; and the pursuit of money took him to a reality show where he underwent several plastic surgeries.

"He's not crazy," says Maturana, the coach that gave him the freedom to roam outside the box with Atlético Nacional and Colombia. "René is a very loyal person with an immense sense of friendship. And it's because of friendship that he got into trouble."

At 42, Higuita has turned the page to continue his pro career. "I never retired," says René, who is currently playing in the Colombian first division for Deportivo Pereira, which signed him in July to a $10,000-a-month contract at the behest of coach Luis Fernando Suárez.

"I still think he's a very important player because he's got charisma and safe hands, and he transmits that to the team," says Suárez, a former Maturana assistant who took Ecuador to the second round of the 2006 World Cup and is an old pal of Higuita.

Nearly two decades ago, Higuita and Suárez were part of the Atlético Nacional squad that transformed Colombian soccer. In the late 1970s, coinciding with the country's drug-trafficking boom, Colombian clubs began snatching up the best players in South America and dominating the Copa Libertadores. With the money that poured in from the Cali cartel, América built a team that reached the final of the regional tournament on three occasions, though it couldn't seal the deal.

But then along came Atlético Nacional, the most popular team in the country, with a different philosophy: The Medellín club only signed native-born players and developed a possession-style attack. Inspired by the Netherlands' "Total Football," Maturana used Higuita as a sweeper-keeper. This allowed the other 10 players to move up the field and form a compact bloc ideal for the short-passing game that Colombians have become famous for.

(If Higuita didn't invent the sweeper-keeper role, he certainly perfected it, using his superb technique to distribute the ball from the back instead of kicking it away like his predecessor, the Dutch shot stopper Jan Jongbloed.)

By constantly playing the ball with his feet and even scoring goals on spot kicks, Higuita developed a reputation as a flamboyant and risky goalie, when in fact he excelled in the traditional aspects of net minding. It was Higuita's knack for stopping penalty shots that won the Libertadores title in 1989, when he blocked four of them in a shootout against Paraguayan club Olimpia in the final.

"Playing badly, we would at least tie the game," says Maturana. "It was very hard to score on him."

But Atlético Nacional, just like América, had its own nefarious patron, Escobar; and the relationship with the capo of the Medellín cartel would cost the goalie, who to this day remains unapologetic.