Mark Gleeson looks at the mythical potential of Zaire, who play Bafana Bafana in a World Cup qualifying match next month
ZAIRE’S soccer team is as elusive, enigmatic and potentially dangerous as the animal they claim as their mascot.
The Leopards will be in town on November 9 to play South Africa at Soccer City in Johannesburg at the start of the African qualifying campaign for the World Cup finals in France in 1998, and bring with them a reputation for both the brilliant and absurd.
The over-riding memory of Zaire, wearing faded green shirts with the screen-printed head of a leopard emblazoned on the chest, is still of the World Cup in West Germany in 1974, when they were the first country from sub-Saharan African to make an appearance in the finals.
It was an almost comical performance as abundant defensive errors cost them dear and they went home goalless and having conceded 14 goals in just three games, including a 9- 0 drubbing by Yugoslavia that remains a World Cup finals record and is likely never to be broken.
It is distressing for Zairean football that their international image remains clouded by that farcical folly, but they have done nothing since to come anywhere near to changing those perceptions.
A period of dominance in African football in the early 1970s, and occasional threats of potential, is as much as Zaire have offered.
Yet, it is a country that remains a sleeping giant in world football, given an abundant pool of resources and limitless potential.
Zaire are one of just a handful of African countries who could choose a national starting 11 made up solely of players from the leading leagues of Europe, and who have the ability to call upon more than 40 foreign-based players.
They have, however, been constricted by that all-too-pervasive African football malaise – lack of money and a corrupt administration.
The large posse of foreign-based players means any effective training and preparation Zaire seek to achieve costs a great deal of money in airfares and player payments. In much the same way that it costs a fortune to put together a decent South African team these days.
Unlike South Africa, Zaire is bankrupt, there is no money in the state coffers and certainly nothing for sport – save for when the country’s leader, Mobutu Sese Seko, needs a little populist pep-up which a successful football team always seems to engender in a beleaguered populace keen for a respite from the trauma of day-to-day living under despots.
That is why, for the last six years, we have seen the incredible situation in which Zaire have secured qualification for the biennial finals of the African Nations Cup by using a set of mostly domestically based players, only for the whole team to change and be reinforced by their foreign legion when it comes time to play the finals.
During the qualifying tournament for the last Nations Cup finals in South Africa, Zaire used a total of 42 players in their seven qualifying matches, only 16 of them from their considerable contingent in Europe. And their appearances were sparing as the federation could afford to bring no more than four players from Europe per game.
But when they got to South Africa, only nine of the 22-man squad were drawn from Zairean clubs, Mobutu having put his hand in his pocket for once.
Most of the money was brought in a briefcase by the sports minister, who was then rumoured to have gone house-hunting in Durban before paying his players.
It led to a mini-revolt, with some extraordinary scenes in the team’s hotel lobby, that saw the coach storm out after just one match at the Nations Cup finals, one player fly home to Germany and the rest sulk through a series of mediocre performances which saw the Zaireans go no further than the quarter-finals.
Matters were made worse by the selection of three players, whose knowledge of the language, tradition and customs of their country was restricted to childhood memory and the parlours of their parents.
One player, striker Felix-Michel Ngonge, was born of Zairean parents in the former colonial power Belgium and had never been anywhere near Africa before. He flew directly from Europe to Durban before the tournament started, where he and several others from Europe kicked their heels for a week while awaiting the rest of the team, and then went straight back to Belgium with one cap under his belt.
Michel Dinzey, born of a Zairean father and German mother, could not speak Lingala, Swahili or French – the languages of the country – and was thus unable to communicate with his teammates. He cut a lone figure during the tournament before going home early with the coach Mushin Ertugal.
The other orphan was Roger Hitoto, a French first division player with Lille, who was born in Kinshasa but moved to France with his parents at the age of three.
Amazingly, all three have got over the trauma of soccer the Zairean way to still be in contention for team selection for the match against South Africa. Under new coach Muntumbile Santos, Zaire scored seven goals in their two World Cup preliminary round matches against Mauritius in June, but were recently held to a goalless draw by George Weah and his Liberian compatriots in a qualifying game for the 1998 African Nations Cup finals.
Santos is back in charge after serving a six-month suspension for fielding an over- age player in an under-23 match against Congo, which led to Zaire being kicked out of the All-African Games soccer competition.
A former foreign-based international himself, Santos knows both sides of the coin and has been able to attempt something of a warm-up for the match against South Africa with a recent friendly match in Morocco. But the game ended in suitable Zairean style – most of their players arrived just hours before kick-off and they lost 7-0.
But none of this ludicrousness should lull South Africa into a sense of complacency. Zaire have the potential to play a mean game of football and there is no better stimulant than the World Cup.
They have a side with strength in defence, bite in midfield where captain Kaboya Mukanya remains one of the unsung heroes of African football, and plenty of talent upfront, not least their new goalscoring sensation Mbullua Ntondelua.
They will be a very serious threat to South Africa’s World Cup aspirations.