In 1963, with Real Madrid, FC Porto, and Sao Paulo in Caracas to play in the Pequeña Copa del Mundo, two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alfredo Di Stefano was kidnapped. After being held by his captors for 70 hours, he was released unharmed. Orchestrating the headline-grabbing escapade was Cuban-born Venezuelan Paul del Rio with the sole intention of bringing the world’s attention to his political cause, the Armed Forces of National Liberation.
Di Stefano went on to play in the final game of the tournament a day after his release and del Rio, after a stint in prison when he was finally captured ten years later with other illegalities of political propaganda to his name, went on to lead a life of celebrity as an artist until his death in April 2015.
But with both now dead and that story told many times, there’s another kidnapping in Venezuela and in football, 15 years later, to be delved into.
In 1978, 350 kilometres away from the capital of Caracas and the location of Di Stefano’s kidnapping, Portuguesa were hosting Paraguay’s Cerro Porteño in that year’s edition of the Copa Libertadores. The Rojinegro were Venezuela’s in-form team. They’d just broken the Venezuelan transfer record to sign Richard Paez from Estudiantes de Merida, the year before they had won their 3rd league title in four years with Brazilian World Cup winner Jairzinho netting 20 goals in 24 games to finish league top scorer, and they weren’t long off a 16-game winning streak that remains unbeaten in the Primera Division to this day.