The dream of the Copa Libertadores

Our reader Stefan is a world traveler when it comes to football. We have often reported about his trips around the world on sechzger.de. In 2015 his hobby of ground hopping took him to Colombia – enjoy reading!

The dream of the Copa Libertadores

During my trip through Colombia in the spring of 2015, I was finally able to fulfill a long-awaited dream: a game of Liberators cupthe South American counterpart to the Champions League.

A home game for the club National Athletic Medellin it should be in Colombia. The Green and Whites from Drug King’s Town Pablo Escobar are one of the largest clubs in the country and have already won this cup in 1989. Unlike our Champions League, the Copa Libertadores isn’t as financially bedded on roses. However, this has the positive side effect that the same six teams do not fight for the title every year. In the 15 years from 2005 to 2019 alone, there were 13 different winners.

Groundhopping Colombia

In the final game of the group stage, Atletico Nacional met Club Libertad from Paraguay. Both teams were level on points in first and second place, but only one point behind was La Plata from Buenos Aires. A win therefore means safe advancement to the elimination games.

The Estadio Atanasio Girardot is a huge, partially covered, typical South American bowl for 53,000 people with two tiers. No visiting fans came from Paraguay, so the approximately 43,000 visitors were all dressed for Nacional and accordingly also in green and white.

I shouldn’t be disappointed: The Barra Brava had a huge assortment of flags, banners, drums and songs and showed a good choreo of balloons at the beginning of the game.

Uniform waving flags

What I really liked and what I hadn’t seen anywhere before: The same flags could be seen everywhere in the fan block. Slightly larger than typical fan shop flags, but still in the same color pattern with the club logo, but the fan club name or a district was also on the waving flag. The individual fan clubs, which were completely behind their club, blurred into a large, unified whole. A few weeks later I was talking about this idea at home and shortly thereafter I saw the stickers of the ML everywhere, decorated with the different neighborhoods. Was there a connection?

In terms of play, Atletico didn’t miss a beat and won 4-0. Three of the goals came in the second half. And the more it became clear that there was no longer any fear of elimination, the more all the spectators almost sang themselves into a frenzy. Everywhere green and white umbrellas, balloons and jerseys were waved and hopped and jumped in the typical South American way. The great picture was rounded off with the lights of the favelas on the slopes around the stadium. It was a wonderful evening, which of course was rounded off with a few “Club Colombia” beers afterwards.

Great gesture to Chapecoense

So Atletico Nacional qualified for the playoffs, but lost there in the first round against Emelec from Ecuador. However, the following year, 2016, went down in history for the club when the coveted trophy was won for the first time since 1989.

Also at the second highest tournament, the South American Cup, Atletico participated and made it to the final. However, this was never played out because the opponent’s aircraft Chapecoense crashed while landing for the first leg in Medellin on November 28, 2016, killing almost the entire Brazilian team.

Atletico Nacional relinquished the title and the prize money in favor of Chapecoense. Although the final match could not take place, 52,000 Nacional supporters still met in the stadium and sang Chape’s anthem together. The SZ wrote: