Jorge Ramírez Gallego

Jorge Enrique Ramírez Gallego was born on March 25, 1940, in Cali, Colombia, and grew up in the Benjamín Herrera neighbourhood of a city that already lived and breathed football. Fans would know him as Jorge Gallego and, above all, as Gallegol: a nickname that fused his surname with the Spanish word for goal and followed him for six decades. He played as a centre-forward, built like an old-fashioned ariete, and became the man most closely tied to Deportivo Cali's first golden age.

He began his professional career with Millonarios in Bogotá in 1962. Minutes were limited, but the Embajadores were still the glamour club of Colombian football. Spanish Wikipedia's honours list credits him with league titles in 1962 and 1963 at Millonarios; several 2026 English-language obituaries instead cite 1963 and 1964. What is not in dispute is that he left the capital after a brief 1964 spell with Deportes Quindío, where he formed the llave negra partnership with Edison Angulo and scored heavily enough to catch the eye of his hometown club.

In 1965 he returned to Cali and joined Deportivo Cali. That season he scored 32 league goals, finished runner-up in the scoring charts behind Perfecto Rodríguez of Independiente Medellín, and helped the Azucareros claim the first league championship in club history. El Tiempo's 1997 profile remembered the decisive away goal against Cúcuta and the delirious homecoming at the air base, with firefighters leading a city parade. Further titles followed in 1967, 1969 and 1970. Across nine seasons (1965-1973) club and national press settled on the figure that still defines him: 168 goals in about 300 matches for Deportivo Cali, still the club record. EN Wikipedia's career table lists 171 goals in 329 appearances for Cali; Blu Radio likewise cites 171/329. Either way, no later Azucarero has overtaken him. He is also repeatedly listed among the leading scorers in the history of the Cali derby against América (commonly 12 goals) and among the all-time top scorers of Colombian Primera A (El País places him sixth with about 201 career league goals; Wikipedia career totals reach 214 club goals including all competitions counted there).

His game was physical, aerial and opportunistic. Contemporaries said he could score with belly, knee or back; a 1971 chronicle quoted by Blu Radio said he could finish hasta con la barriga. El Tiempo retold a Pascual Guerrero clássico in which a collision left him unconscious in hospital while the city celebrated his headed winner. Nicknames piled up: Gallegol, El Fantasma Gallego, el ariete negro. He also scored about 10 goals in Copa Libertadores for Cali according to El País and Vanguardia, helping the club's early continental campaigns after Cali's first Libertadores appearances of the late 1960s.

Between 1966 and 1970 he earned 14 caps for Colombia and scored four international goals (RSSSF / EN Wikipedia; some Spanish obituaries say six). Those appearances included South American Championship preliminaries toward 1967 and the 1970 World Cup qualifying campaign. He closed his playing career with Deportes Tolima in 1974-1975.

After retirement he coached company sides, spent time in Venezuela with a children's team that won a U.S. tournament, and by 1997 was a Deportivo Cali veedor and coach of the club's Grupo Gorrión under-11s, walking Cali's barrios looking for the next generation (El Tiempo). He never left the city emotionally. When Cali won again while he watched on television, neighbours in Los Andes heard him turn the speakers up and throw a street party.

In August 2025, the Fundación Museo de Historia Verdiblanca honoured him at the Alex Gorayeb administrative seat. Fans cast a sculpture of his feet; his daughter Elizabeth stood beside him. El País recorded that interview as the last major media conversation he granted. On September 4, 2026, he died in Cali at 86, after days in hospital fighting an illness whose precise clinical diagnosis was not published. Deportivo Cali, DIMAYOR, Millonarios-era fans and the national sports press paid tribute within hours. His name remains the first answer to a simple Cali question: who is the club's greatest goal-scorer?