The history of the rivalry between Millonarios and Atlético Nacional was born at the end of the 80s and grew as the years went by and the greens won and gained stars. Until 10 years ago, the blues were the ones with the most league titles. National passed by.
Now, for the first time in history, Millos and Nacional will play, hand in hand, for a League title. If Alberto Gamero’s men win, they will be left with 16 stars. If the title is for Paulo Autuori’s, it will be number 18.
The key year of this rivalry was 1989, due to circumstances that will be explained later. But since 1987, the two teams have been trying to shake off the dominance of América de Cali, which broke out in 1979 and then won five consecutive titles, from 1982 to 1986.
Both teams appealed to house technicians. In the case of Millos, the chosen one was Luis Augusto García, who had already been the technical assistant of the Brazilian José Teixeira and was champion of the reserve tournament in 1980. Trained as a player in Santa Fe, the ‘Chiqui’ reached the blue ranks in 1974.
In Nacional, the bet was for Francisco Maturana, who had been champion twice as a player and in 1986 had had a great campaign with Cristal Caldas, in his first experience as DT.
The first crossing: the hiring of Ricardo ‘Chicho’ Pérez
Millionaires bet on a large payroll with foreigners, Nacional gambled for a project of ‘pure Creoles’. And there began the first bid between the two clubs. Both looked for a midfielder from Caldas, Ricardo ‘Chicho’ Pérez.
“I had ‘Chicho’ sit in my office for two days, fixing everything in the contract. But then he took the body from us: he said he was going to Nacional. For us it was a very ugly rebuff,” recalled Guillermo Ruiz Bonilla, who in 1987 was the sports manager of Millonarios. The team had already advanced money to Caldas. The issue ended in dispute with Dimayor and the solution was that Nacional handed over the pass from goalkeeper Fabio Calle to Millos. Calle had arrived at the club a year earlier.
But it was not the only fight. Millos arranged with Medellín, from club to club, the arrival of Luis Carlos Perea, Gildardo Gómez and Leonel Álvarez, the three most important players of that club, all with a projection to the Colombian National Team: they were part of the team that went to the 1990 World Cup , like ‘Chicho’ Pérez. But the ‘Coroncoro’ and Leonel did not want to go to Bogotá. Six months later, they signed with Nacional. Gómez spent a year in Millos and in 1988 he dressed in green.
The two bets began to work and both Millonarios and Nacional stood up to America. Millionaires had great offensive power. “I liked to go and push up front, not wait. I was always looking for scorers, people who would break through the extremes”, recalled DT García for the book The best Colombian soccer technicians, by the author of these lines.
Nacional had another type of game, with a lot of ball touch. And there began a media war. Eduardo Pimentel, symbol and one of the captains of that Millionaires, harshly criticized the game of the greens.
“In 1987, we won a 0-1 game over there in Medellín. Before the game, in the hotel lobby, they interviewed me. I said what I thought: that Nacional played soccer, that he touched the ball but did not advance, that the goals had to be placed in the eastern and western directions. Many people thought that they played very nicely. They did not like that very much”, recalled the current largest shareholder of Boyacá Chicó.
Even the directors of Nacional, at some point, told Maturana if they could not have more offensive power: he immediately asked them to hire the Millonarios strikers.
A pitched battle at the airport
When Millos could not take Perea and Leonel, players like Wilman Conde, Mario Vanemerak, Mario Videla and Rubén Cousillas arrived. And after another game in Medellín, there was a very serious problem at the Rionegro airport.
“Almost the entire team was already in the waiting room and we, with Mario Vanemerak, stayed to buy some nougat. The police accompanied us, but I did see many fans at the entrance. Suddenly several trucks rang. Many more fans got out and came to attack Mario and me. The rest of the team noticed and got out. Almost a pitched battle broke out,” Pimentel said.
Since then, the atmosphere for the matches between the Blues and the Greens has become terrible. “The statements of some and also some media made the bonfire increase and that transformed the fans, it became an unmanageable thing,” said Alexis García, Nacional player in those years and today Equidad coach.
What is certain is that, at least in 1987 and 1988, the superiority was almost total Millonarios, to such an extent that Maturana, in a match in the 1988 octagonal, changed his way of playing.
In that octagonal, Maturana played with three brand midfielders, ‘Chicho’, Leonel and Luis Fernando Suárez. “We had set it all up, how each one of them moved individually. We normally played our own, but against Millonarios, we were always aware of what “Gambeta” Estrada, Rubén Darío (Hernández), Arnoldo (Iguarán) was doing. We always play it thinking about the tie”, exclaimed Suárez, today the coach of the Costa Rican National Team.
That match was won by Millonarios 1-0, with a goal by Wilman Conde at the last minute, with a shot with his right leg, which was not his profile. “We had them tied up, we had everything planned, but that one came out,” Suárez declared.
In the second round of the octagonal, Nacional beat Millos 3-1 and took away an unbeaten record of 26 games. That day, Estrada scored what for many was the best goal in the history of Colombian soccer, scoring 21 in the box, taking the ball over his head and then dropping it to finish off across the ball. “I remember that when Gambeta scored that goal, I went and hugged him to congratulate him,” Alexis recalled.
The key party: stories of witchcraft?
But the key match of the rivalry was played on April 26, 1989 in El Campín. Millos had lost 1-0 to Nacional in Medellín eight days earlier and was hoping to turn it around to qualify for the Copa Libertadores semifinal.
“We couldn’t beat Millonarios. Then, Luis Carlos Perea’s wife told us that there was a lady who would fix this matter for us. That’s where Perea, Alexis and I went. The lady lit a circle of fire, she put us there and she had told me before: “Take me some blue underpants and a leash.” And I did it and holy remedy. We started with a very good streak. Millos didn’t beat us again and I decided not to take them off again. We resorted to witchcraft to beat Millionaires. Then my grandmother said: ‘But you have to wear them backwards.’ And since then I use them backwards. I only wear blue underpants,” René Higuita told Mauricio Silva Guzmán, in an interview with Bocas magazine.
“It seems to me that whoever won that series was the champion, Millonarios was a very good team. That match was pivotal for us, there we realized that we could be champions”, recalled Suárez.
And they were: in the semifinals they eliminated Danubio (0-0 in Montevideo and 6-0 in Medellín) and in the final, they beat Olimpia from Paraguay, in an endless shootout at El Campín, where they ended up playing because Atanasio Girardot was not accepted by Conmebol due to capacity.
Today, one of the protagonists of that story continues to warm the atmosphere. Tréllez appeared on social networks to talk about the final between blues and greens:
We will play the final and the history of 89 will be repeated!! AND OLEEEE.
— Jhon Jairo Trellez (@JJTrellezv) June 18, 2023
Almost 32 years have passed. The differences of that time remained on the field, to such an extent that ‘Chicho’, who did not speak with Pimentel, was a coach for his team, Boyacá Chicó. May the rivalry always be on the playing field.
Jose Orlando Ascencio
sports deputy editor
@josasc
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