A Love Letter to La Selección

By Sebastián Bush

There’s a WhatsApp group that I’m in called “Familia”; it has eighteen members, all of which are on my mom’s side of the family — the Colombian side. As far back as I can remember, every time La Selección played, the chat would be flooded with message after message: Colombian flags, confusing gifs, overly excited emojis. The ruckus would only intensify with every goal, a stream of excited texts spilling across my screen, our shared love for Los Cafeteros expressed through images with “forwarded many times” in the top left corner. This is a feeling that many Latines can relate to — a passion for fútbol uniting friends, families, and countries — but, at the risk of sounding cocky, I think Colombians do it best.

The first World Cup I truly remember watching was Brazil in 2014. I recall Shakira in all her glory, waving our bandera, telling the world: “We are here.” I remember the seas of yellow, walls of sound, James Rodríguez’s goal against Uruguay sending an entire nation into a frenzy (I can’t even number how many times I practiced that goal in my backyard, attempting, in vain, to recreate his glorious strike). Yes, we lost to the host nation in the quarter-finals — a brutal match that is burned into my memory — but our voice and our love for the sport transcended success. That was when I fell in love with the Colombian men’s national team.

2022 rolled around and, for a moment, all felt lost. Rodríguez was in and out of the team, which had failed to even qualify for Qatar. Confidence was at an all-time low: a footballing behemoth had been reduced to scraps and suddenly, Colombia had no one to cheer on.

A funny thing started happening a couple of years ago. Those messages in the Familia group chat started growing more frequent. No longer was our focus just on the men’s team, now we had a women’s team to cheer for too. It wasn’t that Las Cafeteras hadn’t existed prior (in fact, they had been playing since 1998), it was that the national attention had never given them more than a passing glance. Now, things were starting to change. The Men’s team was in disarray, James Rodríguez’s return to the squad was looking unlikely, and Colombians needed a new talisman to throw their support behind: enter Linda Caicedo.

This past summer was like a footballing eclipse: two major tournaments lined up perfectly, the Olympics on the women’s side, and the Copa America for the men. Colombia would be competing in both and despite years of mediocrity, Los Cafeteros were back and riding a hot streak of form coming into their first major competition in three years. The women’s side had only ever qualified twice for the Olympics and had yet to make it out of the group stage, so this was their chance to cement their status as not just a short-term replacement for the men’s side, but a team worth supporting alongside it. The pressure was on.

The experience of getting to watch both national teams compete simultaneously, each at a high caliber, was unlike anything I’ve experienced before. James Rodríguez was back, Luis Díaz was on fire, and Mayra Ramírez was cementing herself as a top #9 in European football: the quality was incredible. It wasn’t just the players though, or the teams necessarily, it was the culture. Everyone was behind our women and men, infamous Colombian crowds filling Paris just like they filled Glendale. The Familia group was alive, our love for el amarillo, azul, y rojo a comforting and constant background buzz. And, most of all, there was immense pride. Pride in our stars, pride in our nation, pride from a country where football has historically been the one great uniter, especially when times were dark. To see that same team succeeding as the country moves forward into a new, more inclusive, and progressive age — reflected by its increasing acceptance and support of women’s soccer — was heartwarming. And although the women lost to Spain in the first round of the knockouts, they took the best team in the world to penalties and almost toppled them. They made Colombia proud.

The men played their hearts out as well, with resounding victories against Panama and Uruguay forging the way to a first final in 20 years — against none other than Messi and Argentina. Many South Americans rally around Argentina as a beacon of success, Messi the footballing prophet, a conduit of Latine pride and inspiration. For many Colombians, however, this is not the case; Argentina is a rival, a nemesis and perpetual big brother, the Goliath of the South. They effectively knocked Colombia from World Cup qualification in 2022 and eliminated them in the 2021 Copa America, Emiliano Martínez’s gratuitous air-humping during the penalty shootout a magnet for pent-up Colombian anger and frustration. This game was thus the culmination of a historic rivalry turned disgusting spat — Colombia had everything to prove, Argentina had nothing to lose.

Colombia did not win. Argentina scored in extra time to halt Colombia in their tracks, and yet, the only emotion resonating after the game from Colombian fans was pride. James Rodríguez, not Messi, was named as the tournament’s best player and Colombia, not Argentina, was awarded the Fair Play award. This was not a trophy, at the end of the day, but Colombians walked away from the US as well as France with their heads held high, a single message resonating across generations and throughout the entire country: “Gracias.”

For many fans, this may have just been a renaissance from a program that had fallen by the wayside for a few years, but for others, this was so much more. For young girls across Colombia (especially black Colombians of which there are few at high levels of women’s sports), this was a — all things considered — good women’s team elevated to the same level as the men’s side. This was no renaissance, this was a revolution. Women’s football has always been about more than just the sport: it’s about equal pay, queer representation, political activism, and so much more. Athletes inspire, they drive, they lead; they unite.

On Twitter (X), every national team has a trademark hashtag. Argentina’s is “#VamosArgentina” and Chile’s is “#SomosLaRoja”. Uruguay plasters “#ElEquipoQueNosUne” across all of their tweets (not “TheTeamsThatUniteUs”, but “TheTeamThatUnitesUs”). Colombia’s on the other hand? “#TodosSomosColombia”. Is it cheesy? Yes. Is it pretty generic? Yeah. Is it true? Also yes. When we turn on La Selección, when we play fútbol cinco in local indoor pitches, and when we wear our yellow, blue, and red, we are all Colombia. From Radamel Falcao to Ana Guzmán, James Rodríguez to Linda Caicedo; we represent one flag and one nation. Colombia.