For The Lost Ones...

It was one of those endings one has come to expect of Hollywood movies. Indeed, no one could have scripted an ending this perfect. Yet, as Stoppira Sunzu scored to put an end to a marathon penalty shoot-out in Libreville last Sunday, this real life redemption story had reality imitating art in a most refreshing manner.

Sunzu’s kick won Zambia its very first Africa Nations Cup crown, the very highest point in the history of Chipolopolo, achieved at the very site of the country’s most traumatic tragedy. For it was on this very same shores – a mere 500 yards off mainland Libreville – that a chartered airplane carrying Zambia’s national team to a World Cup qualifier in Senegal had plunged into the Ocean on April 17 1993, killing off an entire generation of the finest footballers Zambia had ever produced.

That it’s taken nigh on 20 years - a whole generation – for Zambia to reach this crowning moment perhaps undermines the enormity of what this team have achieved here. And indeed, the magnitude of what that loss represented to Zambian - and African – football at the time. Much more will be written about today’s heroes – the impressive goalkeeping of Kennedy Mweene; the resilient man-marking of Sunzu; the midfield industry of Rainford Kalaba; and the attacking guile of Chris Katongo and Felix Mayuka. But those whose loss, all those years ago, has played a part in inspiring these ones can never be forgotten, and it was particularly pleasing to see Kalusha Bwalya (the one player who missed that fateful flight as he was supposed to join up with his teammates directly from his base in Belgium) celebrating with Katongo and co. in Libreville.

More recent observers of African football can be forgiven for thinking of Zambia as this middle-order soccer country enjoying its 15 minutes of fame. But those who remember Chipolopolo before that fateful day in 1993 will recall a blossoming African soccer power. Indeed, the fact that a reconstituted national team – basically a B team, since none of them (save Bwalya) was deemed good enough to be on that fateful flight – was only narrowly beaten by a superb Nigeria team in the Nations Cup final just a year later, speaks volumes about the quality of that team.

But the full story of that Zambian team can only begin in the summer of 1988 at the Olympic Games in South Korea. There, a team brilliantly back-stopped by the legendary Efford Chabala, and inspired by the midfield talents of Charles Musonda and Kalusha Bwalya, started off with a 5-0 rout of Guatemala, before posting what remains perhaps the biggest result in Zambian football history – a 4-0 bashing off mighty Italy. Kalusha claimed a hat-trick on that day, underlining his role as the team’s talisman, and cementing his place in Zambian football lore.

Five years later, that team had matured together and had a really good chance of making another splash on the international scene. They had started their World Cup final qualifying round with an impressive 2-1 win against Morocco in Lusaka. But it all went awry with that fateful trip that ended so tragically in Libreville.

Goalkeepers Efford Chabala and Richard Mwanza; defenders John Soko, Whiteson Changwe, Robert Watiyakeni, Samuel Chomba, Kenan Simambe, and Winter Mumba; midfielders Eston Mulenga, Derby Makinka, Moses Chikwalakwala, Wisdom Chansa, Numba Mwila, Godfrey Kangwa; strikers Kelvin Mutale, Timothy Mwitwa, Moses Masuwa, Patrick Banda.

All gone – but not forgotten. This one’s for them too.