About 27 years after it was made, the ‘scorpion‘ What did René Higuita in 1995 in a friendly match of the Colombia selection and that characterized him throughout his career, he was imitated in a volleyball game in the United States.
The college sports match between George Mason University of Virginia and Purdue University Fort Wayne in Indiana went 12-15 in favor of the Virginia team saw the play of a George Mason man immediately bringing back the memory of the Colombian goalkeeper.
See the playThe origin of the ‘scorpion’
It was a child who stopped the ball and played with it, raised it, maybe he wanted to show off and that’s why he improvised a Chilean. Higuita, who was waiting in the arch –or outside the arch–, had no choice but to invent, to rave. He dived head first to catch the ball with his heels – as he had already practiced – but what he did was connect it with the soles of his boots. Like a Chilean in reverse. That scene, as famous as the one at Wembley, was in 1990, in the recording of a popular commercial for the soda Frutiño. That day the ‘scorpion’ was born.
Higuita was the goalkeeper of the Colombian National Team, the show of the bow, loved and hated, controversial. But he was an idol for many. He did crazy things, he kicked penalties, he scored free-kick goals, he invented tunnels to fierce strikers, he was not afraid, he had no limits. Perhaps, while drinking the refreshing drink that he promoted, he already imagined that he had done something unique, a movement that in the air was similar to that of a scorpion, that of a scorpion. Although, initially, people knew him as the ‘frutiño’. Since then he has not stopped perfecting it.
“People think that that day at Wembley he invented it, but no, he always did it, he trained it daily, he told us he was going to do it in a game, until he could. He did it because of his personality, because he is risky. That play was immortalized by that. It’s not that it was something normal, but we knew it could be easy for him, at any time, “said former player Víctor Aristizábal, with the same amazement he had 20 years ago when he saw the image and only managed to say:” Uich, this man, so much that he said and finally did it ”.
Aristizábal already knew about scorpions. He had scored such a goal two years earlier, with Colombia, in a game against Chile. But the play has more antecedents. Paraguayan Roberto Cabañas scored a ‘scorpion’ goal when he played for Cosmos in the US in 1983. Long before, in the 70s, German goalkeeper Sepp Maier was already doing it, but in training sessions.
One day in 2012, the Mexican Hugo Sánchez surprised by claiming the play; He said that he had invented it at Real Madrid, but that he could not do it in a game. He called it the ‘mule kick’. “I thank Higuita, who made me famous that auction, I invented it,” he said.
But what about René was unique because he did it in a match, at Wembley, with the National Team, and because he was a goalkeeper. All the ingredients to be a legendary play. In 2008 it was chosen the best in the history of football in a poll carried out in England by a portal called Footy-boots and which was reproduced by the English press. He surpassed Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo and Maradona, among others.
It became such a move of his that he did not tire of repeating it: in Maradona’s farewell game and in Aristizábal’s he did it. “We used to tell him,” says Aristizábal, “‘Loco’, but it already came out once, do you want to do it everywhere? ‘ “I can go out more times,” said René. Ha ha. That’s how he was, you had confidence ”.
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