René Higuita

Higuita was born in Medellín, Antioquia to a single mother, Maria Dioselina. His mother died when he was very young, so his grandma had to take care of him. He was very poor as a child, so he had to work as newspaper mailman and many other jobs in order to survive.

Higuita started his playing career with Millonarios and transferred to Atlético Nacional in 1986. He played the majority of his club career with the Colombian side where he helped the team win the Colombian League on numerous occasions as well as the Copa Libertadores and Copa Interamericana, both in 1989. After leaving them, he moved to Spain to play with Real Valladolid for one season, before coming back to Atletico Nacional for four years. He then left for Mexico to play for Veracruz before coming back to the Colombian league to play for Atletico's city rivals, Independiente Medellín.

He briefly retired in 2005 after failing a drug test while playing for Aucas.

He came out of retirement on 21 July 2007 to sign for Venezuelan club Guaros FC. In January 2008, aged 41, he signed for the Colombian second division team Deportivo Rionegro. In June 2008 he signed for another Colombia team, Deportivo Pereira, and finally retired on 25 January 2010.[6]

Higuita in the training sessions with Colombia during the 1990 World Cup

Higuita's first major tournament was the 1989 Copa América, where the team was knocked out in the first round. In the 1990 FIFA World Cup, he played an important part to lead the country into the round of 16 for the first time ever. However, Higuita's unorthodox playing style caused a mistake by him that knocked Colombia out of the World Cup, when he tried to feint Cameroon striker Roger Milla but failed, and Milla dispossessed him and scored, which put Cameroon through to the quarter-finals. Higuita described it as "a mistake as big as a house".[7] As a result of such behaviour, Higuita was nicknamed El Loco ("The Madman").[8]

He played in the 1991 Copa América where the team finished fourth. His last call up for the national team was for the 1999 Copa América.

Higuita often took set-pieces for the Colombian national team, in all, he scored three goals in his 68 international appearances.

On the pitch, Higuita was known for his dramatic flair, composure under pressure, and eccentric playing style, often taking unnecessary risks and actively coming out of his area to anticipate opponents, play the ball out to defenders, undertake individual dribbling runs, and attempt to score goals, which led him to be described as a 'sweeper-keeper'; he was therefore a pioneer in influencing other goalkeepers to take more responsibility for situations further away from the goal.[3] Although he was a goalkeeper, Higuita also became known for scoring directly from free-kicks, as well as penalties.[9]

His style of play led to the creation of the Back-pass rule, which is also known as the Higuita Law.

IFFHS ranked Higuita the 8th best keeper in South American history.

Higuita's style of play, which was first shown to a global audience during the 1990 FIFA World Cup, was pioneering in influencing goalkeepers to take more responsibility for situations further from the goal.

Higuita has expressed the wish to coach the Colombian national team and in December 2008 he got the job of goalkeeper coach for his former club Real Valladolid.[11]

He joined Al Nassr FC in Saudi Arabia in 2011, and was the club goalkeeper coach for about 5 years, until 2016.

He rejoined Atletico Nacional on 28 June 2017 after receiving a coaching job as the goalkeeping coach. Upon rejoining, he said "the dream of my life was to return to Atletico Nacional".[12]

Higuita was friends with Diego Maradona and played in the Argentine's farewell match in 2001.[13]

Higuita was imprisoned in 1993 after getting involved in a kidnapping. Acting as a go-between for the drug barons Pablo Escobar and Carlos Molina, he was largely responsible for securing the release of Molina's daughter by delivering the ransom money. He received $64,000 for his services, which breaks Colombian law as it is an offence to profit from a kidnapping. He was incarcerated for seven months before being released without charge. Commenting on the case, he has stated that "I'm a footballer, I didn't know anything about kidnapping laws."[14]

In the ESPN documentary "The Two Escobars", Higuita claimed that he was arrested for visiting Pablo during his time in prison with the desire to thank him for turning himself in thus stabilizing Colombia for a short period. He supported this theory claiming that all he was asked during questioning was solely about Pablo Escobar himself and no kidnapping.[15]

Because of the term in prison Higuita was not fit for the 1994 FIFA World Cup. In another scandal, he tested positive for cocaine on 23 November 2004 while playing for Aucas, an Ecuadorian football club.[16][17]

In 2005, Higuita participated in the reality TV program La isla de los famosos: Una aventura pirata ("The Island of the Famous: A Pirate Adventure"), a show similar to Survivor. Also in 2005, he underwent plastic surgery to completely change his appearance.[18]

Higuita has expressed the wish to become more politically active.[19]

• List of doping cases in sport
• List of goalscoring goalkeepers

Wikimedia Commons has media related to René Higuita.

• René Higuita at National-Football-Teams.com
• International statistics at rsssf
• Rene Higuita Career Info and Achievements
• FIFA interview with René Higuita
• BBC SPORT Tim Vickery The legacy of Rene Higuita
• René Higuita clips: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4