The massive caravan that received the Lions of Santa Fe on Bogotá on Monday to celebrate the tenth star as Colombian professional football champions.
Photo: Jose Vargas Esguerra
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As in the history of mankind, the lion has always been a symbol of power in the history of football since 1863, when the English patented three lions in their shield and made this sport the most universal. I testify to that from Bogotá, the headquarters of the Independent Club Santa Fe, the first champion of the Professional League of Colombia, in 1948 and, since last night, champion 2025. It is not about any sports lion, but one of the most recognized of this continent for having won the South American Cup (2015) and the Intercontinental Cup Suruga (2016) in Japan.
León's soul inherited her from my dad, Gilberto, melenudo scorer of her amateur club, whom I do not remember as happy as in that 1975 when “Santecofito Lindo” won one of the ten national championships that are now stars that together we wore in the chest. He put my first red and white shirt and explained that those colors came from the Arsenal of England. That is why they also call us arsenales. He rose me on shoulders and bought me a altar boy, the doll that represents the Santa Confereña pet and who connected me with a force that was unknown to me: a real lion they were carrying in a cage to be exhibited at the El Campín stadium before the games.
With airs of Roman Circus, the hairy monaguillo roaring to the rhythm of the brave bars that chanted “We are the lions!, Let's go lions!”, While a giant flag was deployed by the stands in which “the strength of a people” was read.
Drinking coffee, I told the story to the writer and animalist Fernando Vallejo and answered me with one of his sarcasm: “Soccer is a degrading circus, that's why my favorite sport is sex.” He only gave me the benefit of the doubt when I told him that Monaguillo did not take him to the court again and spent his last years well cared for in a zoo near Bogotá, where all the fans of Santa Fe were going to visit him to claim our essence. Nor was he convinced when I reminded Albert Camus and his vision of human existentialism through the lion and football, according to his writings, a “link that never ended” since he debuted in Algeria as goalkeeper of the Montpensier club until he played in the University Racing of Algiers.
There may be reasons to hate football, but for me it is a positive way to assume life. Where I go to the Lions, be those of Estudiantes de La Plata, in Argentina (Ernesto Sabato's team, who spoke of the “internal lion” of the people), where I went to write about the last years of Diego Armando Maradona with the wolves of gymnastics and fencing; Be those of Athletic Bilbao, in Spain -I accompanied them to the final of the Copa del Rey against Barcelona in Valencia, in 2009; Let the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon or the English lions starch, which I saw play and included in my book “Live a World Cup. Chronicles of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil”Football is passion so much that I also wrote a Book on the generation of Colombian players led by James Rodrígueztoday star at the León Club, in Mexico. And I take so seriously the power of the lion that my car is a Peugeot and its side lights are in the form of fangs that illuminate my path.
Personal memories to record that my Santa Fe de Bogotá was crowned champion on June 29, 2025, playing as a visitor in the city of Medellín before 45 thousand followers of Independiente Medellín, asserting our already legendary motto of “Claw and Heart” until the last minute when the scorer of the National League, Hugo Rodallega-who previously played in the premiere premier I cried because I was injured. He did not want to get out of the field and, even so, rengruging from the right leg, put together a collective play and finished off to give us the tenth star in an epic action that should be a candidate for the Puskás award for the best goal of the year (See it here).
After nine years of waiting, this new title was celebrated to tears, hugging my dad, and the two bald. He, at 82, enjoyed him more than the triumph that united us forever half a century ago. Although he told me in a paradoxical tone: “I wish it is not the last one, because for more lions we feel, we are not eternal.” I remembered my friend Juan Villoro, who says that his father was a philosopher until watching football. Mine too, in its own way.
