Director: Luis Ara
Few goalkeepers ever became a global name for anything other than saves, but René Higuita built a career, and a following, out of doing the unexpected.
What is Higuita The Way of the Scorpion about?
Tracing the Colombian goalkeeper's path from a modest neighborhood to the top of South American football, the documentary spends less time on match highlights than on the personality behind them: a keeper who dribbled past strikers, invented an acrobatic scorpion-style clearance on the biggest stage, and treated the goal area as a place to perform rather than merely defend. Interviews and archival footage trace his rise through Colombian clubs and the national team during a turbulent era for the sport in the country, then follow the fallout from off-field controversies that briefly derailed his career and reputation. The film does not shy away from the messier chapters, presenting them alongside the on-field brilliance so the audience can weigh both sides of a genuinely unconventional sporting life.
Cast & crew
René Higuita appears throughout in present-day interviews alongside archival match footage, giving the documentary a first-person voice rather than relying solely on outside commentary. Director Luis Ara builds the film mainly from this testimony and period footage instead of dramatized reenactment.
Context & significance
Higuita played much of his career during a period when Colombian football was tightly bound up with the country's broader turbulence, and the documentary uses that backdrop to explain both his fame and the controversies that followed him. His scorpion kick, performed in a friendly against England in 1995, remains one of the most replayed moments in the sport's history and is treated here as a turning point in how the wider world saw him. The film also revisits his time at Atletico Nacional and his selection for multiple World Cup squads, framing his sweeper-keeper habits as years ahead of how the position is played today.
Where & how to watch
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