It may seem hard to believe that Colombia used to be football minnows. Nowadays, we are used to seeing Colombians of the stature of James Rodríguez, Falcao, Juan Cuadrado and Duván Zapata starring in the best leagues in the world, and many will remember the emblematic Carlos Valderrama, René Higuita and Faustino Asprilla from the 1990s. However, from their first appearance in the South American Championship in 1945, Colombia were one of the continent’s whipping boys. The national team inspired little national hope or confidence; the old qualifying system for World Cups of groups of three meant that they usually came up against one of the strongest teams of the continent and any hopes of qualification were abruptly ended. The odd victory occasionally raised hopes but the losses soon returned and the football refrain “We played like never before, but we lost like always” became commonplace after each Copa América or World Cup qualifying campaign. Club football was also in the doldrums after the excitement of the El Dorado league (1948-1953).
This footballing inferiority complex and awareness of their lowly position in the continental and global football hierarchy was embedded during the El Dorado period. Colombian footballers were not in the same league as the imported stars, such as Alfredo Di Stéfano, Adolfo Pedernera, Heleno de Freitas et al, and fans were attracted to the stadiums only to watch the very best. When El Dorado ended and the best foreign players left in droves, Colombian national football was in tatters. Many clubs were broke, the fans drifted away, and nothing had been done to strengthen Colombian football or improve Colombian players. The national team were banned from international football by FIFA, and endless squabbles and power struggles between the Colombian football association, Adefútbol, and the organisers of the professional league, Dimayor, meant that football organization was also a mess. There was no sense of an identity; clubs and directors perpetually looked south to Argentina and Uruguay for players and coaches, trying to imitate their style of play to find some much-desired success.
In 1957, Colombia were readmitted into the football fold by FIFA in time for that year’s South American Championships in Peru and for qualifying for the 1958 World Cup. As usual, an argument broke out between Adefútbol and Dimayor about who should represent the nation in Peru; Adefútbol initially refused to select players from the professional Dimayor league, and opted to send the Valle del Cauca amateur team who had won the Colombian departmental championship. This team, trained by Hungarian former player and coach György Orth, had gained acclaim in winning the regional tournament and did contain future Colombian stars Delio ‘Maravilla’ (Marvel) Gamboa and Marino Klinger. However, the team was young, inexperienced, and none of the players had played any professional football. Eventually, after considerable wrangling and pressure from the press, the team was augmented with some of the best players of the Dimayor league, including goalkeeper Efraín ‘El Caimán’ Sánchez (then the only Colombian who had played in a foreign league, for San Lorenzo in Argentina pre El Dorado), and Francisco ‘el Cobo’ Zuluaga who had commanded a place in defence in the legendary ‘Blue Ballet’ Millonarios team that included Di Stéfano, Pedernera and Néstor Rossi.
However, in the first game of the tournament against Argentina, only one of the professionals played and Colombia were battered 8-2. In the next game against the equally fearsome Uruguay, there was a change in policy and eight of the professionals came into the team. Sánchez in goal was inspired, and with a goal from Carlos Arango, Colombia somehow triumphed 1-0. This was the first major victory for Colombia in international football, beating the two-time World Champions, and it was heralded at home as proof that Colombia could cope with the continent’s best teams. This opinion was rather premature, as Colombia failed to win another game, losing 3-2 vs Chile, humiliated 9-0 by a rampant Brazil, followed by successive 4-1 losses against neighbours Peru and Ecuador. The team fared little better in the 1958 World Cup qualifiers; despite employing a German Salesian priest to help with physical preparation, they failed to progress from a tough group against Uruguay and Paraguay, although they did manage a draw against Uruguay.