Colo-Colo 1991: the night Chile won its only Copa Libertadores

On June 5, 1991, in front of 66,517 spectators at the Estadio Monumental in Santiago, Colo-Colo beat Olimpia 3-0 and became champions of South America. To this day it is the only Copa Libertadores won by a Chilean club. Behind that night were a coach shaped in Yugoslavia’s youth system, a squad that brought together several generations of the club, and a 14-match campaign in which the team scored 22 goals and conceded just 8.

Mirko Jozić, a Croatian coach, already knew Chilean football: in 1987 he had led the Yugoslavia youth team that won the U-20 World Cup in Chile. In 1990 he took charge of Colo-Colo’s first team, which won the Chilean championship that same year and with it earned a place in the following year’s Libertadores.

In goal was Daniel Morón, with Marcelo Ramírez as his backup. Lizardo Garrido, Miguel Ramírez, Javier Margas and Eduardo Vilches made up the back line, and captain Jaime Pizarro, a holding midfielder, was the team’s linchpin alongside Rubén Espinoza, Juan Carlos Peralta and Gabriel Mendoza. In attack, Marcelo Barticciotto, Ricardo Dabrowski, Rubén Martínez, Patricio Yáñez, Luis Pérez and Leonel Herrera took turns. Dabrowski finished as the team’s top scorer in the tournament, with six goals.

Colo-Colo were drawn in Group 2 with Deportes Concepción, Liga Deportiva Universitaria de Quito and Barcelona de Guayaquil. Their debut came on February 20, the same day the tournament began: a 0-0 draw in Concepción. At the Monumental the team won all three of their matches, 3-1 against Barcelona, 2-0 against Concepción and 3-0 against Liga de Quito, and away from home they added two more draws, 2-2 in Guayaquil and 0-0 in Quito. They finished top of the group, unbeaten, with 9 points, 10 goals scored and 3 conceded.

In the round of 16 their opponents were Universitario de Deportes. After a 0-0 draw in Lima, Colo-Colo won 2-1 in Santiago with two goals from Rubén Espinoza. In the quarter-finals they faced Nacional of Montevideo: the 4-0 first-leg win at the Monumental proved decisive, because in Montevideo the Uruguayans won 2-0 and it was not enough.

The semi-final against Boca Juniors, who had Gabriel Batistuta in attack, is remembered for reasons both on and off the pitch. At La Bombonera, Boca won 1-0 with a goal from Alfredo Graciani. The return leg was played on May 22 at the Monumental, in front of 64,208 people. Colo-Colo turned the tie around in the second half with goals from Rubén Martínez and Marcelo Barticciotto; Diego Latorre pulled one back for the 3-1 that left the aggregate at 3-2 in the Chileans’ favour.

The ending was chaotic. Punches were thrown between players and people standing by the side of the pitch, and in the middle of the brawl a Carabineros police dog bit Boca goalkeeper Carlos Navarro Montoya. Years later, Navarro Montoya himself admitted that the match would not be played that way today. Latorre remembered it as the most shameful thing he ever experienced on a pitch.

On the other side stood Olimpia, the toughest opponent they could have drawn. The Paraguayan club, coached by Luis Cubilla, were the reigning champions after winning the 1990 Libertadores, had already won it in 1979, and were reaching their third consecutive final, after losing the one in 1989. Colo-Colo, by contrast, had played only one final before, in 1973.

The first leg was played on May 29 at the Defensores del Chaco stadium in Asunción, refereed by the Uruguayan Ernesto Filippi. It was a tight match that ended 0-0. Near the end, after a clash, Olimpia’s Virginio Cáceres and Colo-Colo’s Rubén Martínez were sent off, so neither could play in the return leg. The Chileans were also without Patricio Yáñez, who missed the final through injury.

The second leg, a week later at the Monumental, was refereed by the Brazilian José Roberto Wright. Luis Pérez settled much of the story very early: he scored twice before the 20th minute. Around the half-hour mark, Olimpia were reduced to ten men when Gabriel González was sent off. Gabriel Mendoza went off injured and was replaced by Leonel Herrera, who five minutes from the end made it 3-0.

For Olimpia it was a bitter night, but their era was already part of history: three consecutive finals between 1989 and 1991 and the 1990 title confirmed that team as one of the greats of those years in South America.

As champions of South America, Colo-Colo travelled to Tokyo to play the Intercontinental Cup on December 8, 1991 against Red Star Belgrade, the champions of Europe. The Yugoslav side played the entire second half with a man down after Dejan Savićević was sent off, but won 3-0 with two goals from Vladimir Jugović and one from Darko Pančev, in front of more than 60,000 spectators.

International redemption came the following year. On April 19, 1992, in Kobe, Japan, Colo-Colo and Cruzeiro drew 0-0 in the Recopa Sudamericana, and the Chileans won 5-4 in the penalty shoot-out, with Marcelo Ramírez saving from Boiadeiro. In September 1992 they added the Copa Interamericana against Puebla of Mexico: they won 4-1 away and 3-1 at the Monumental, for a 7-2 aggregate.

More than three decades later, no other Chilean club has won the Copa Libertadores again. That is why Jozić’s team, with Pizarro, Morón, Barticciotto, Pérez and Herrera, remains the obligatory point of reference every time a club from the country tries again.