Blagoje Vidinic

Yugoslavia's Olympic gold medal winning goalkeeper, Blagoje Vidinic, became coach of Zaire in 1971, having just led fellow Africans, Morocco, to the 1970 World Cup Finals in Mexico. Aged just 36 at the time of his appointment, Vidinic immediately bonded with his young squad although there were some initial problems as Zaire captain Mantantu Kidumu explained prior to the 1974 Finals:

"When Mr Vidinic joined us, some three years ago, the idea of actually getting to the World Cup Finals never entered our heads. I think he was rather horrified by what he saw, by our lack of proper training and method on the field. We had some fine players, but they simply didn't know what to do to make the best of their skills. It was not really our fault, I might add: We had seen only our fellow Africans play, and we did not appreciate that the standards and styles were all that different elsewhere. Mr Vidinic, of course, had coached all over the world, so he knew from his experience what was good and what was bad."

Vidinic wasn't the first foreign coach to take charge of Zaire, the Hungarian Ferenc Csandi having led the team to African Nations Cup glory (as Congo) in 1968. However, following this there was a period of instability in the Zairean national team with several different coaches being used without much success. FIFA had rejected the country's entry for the 1970 World Cup and the team was eliminated in the opening round of their defence of the African Nations crown in the same year. The appointment of Vidinic brought some much needed calmness to proceedings. "I lost my place in the team after a row with the previous trainer," recalls midfielder, Mafu Kibonge. "Vidinic brought me back and restored my confidence." Fellow midfielder Mayanga Maku also sang the praises of his new coach. Speaking in 1974 he said, "I made my international debut eight years ago at 18. Since then I have played under eight different coaches. Vidinic has been by far the most influential. He has worked on my weaknesses to make me a better player.

Despite only making fourth place at the 1972 African Nations Cup, Vidinic's fast-improving young team were on the brink of greatness. Having disposed of Togo, Cameroon, Ghana and Zambia, only his former team, Morocco, stood between Zaire and qualification for the 1974 World Cup Finals in West Germany. A bad tempered game in Kinshasa saw the home team secure their place with a 3-0 victory, the second-half goals coming from Kembo (2) and substitute Mbungu. So outraged were the Moroccans by the lenient refereeing to Zaire's physical approach to the game (star midfielder Ahmed Faras had had to go off injured and the North Africans claimed that goalkeeper Belkourchi had been fouled on the first goal) that they demanded a re-match. When FIFA refused this, Morocco forfeited the final group game (giving Zaire a 2-0 victory), as well as withdrawing from the 1974 African Nations Cup.

9th December 1973, Stade Tate Raphael, Kinshasa, Zaire

Zaire 3-0 Morocco Scorers: Kembo 58', 61', Mbungu 79'

Teams:
Zaire: Kazadi, Mwepu, Mukombo, Buhanga, Lobilo, Mana, Maku, (sub: Ndaye 46'), Kibonge, Kembo, (sub: Mbungu 71'), Kidumu, Kakoko.

Morocco: Belkourchi, Benkrif, Ilhardane, Megrouh, Zahraoui, Najah, Fetouni, Chebbak, Faras (sub: Choukri 52'), Haddadi, Amcharrat.

The official attendance for the match was set at 8,000, although many believe that around 20,000 were actually present!

Zaire regained their African Nations title in March 1974, beating Zambia 2-0 in a replayed final. This victory came right in the middle of twenty week period which Vidinic had to prepare his players for West Germany. In an extremely tough group, the team had been drawn to face Scotland, Yugoslavia and World Champions, Brazil. Despite his players having had no previous experience of playing against European opposition, Vidinic followed up a domestic training camp at Lake Kivu National Park by simply opting to play a few friendly matches against Swiss and Italian clubs barely a month before the Finals began. This is not to say that the players didn't train well, as midfielder Adelard Mayanga recalls: "We found the training very hard, very intense. There had been some fatigue after the Nations Cup and now we were training three times a day." Vidinic was confident about his team's chances:

"I think my present team, like Morocco in 1970, will make a good impression. You have so many problems in this kind of competition. You also have big surprises. I think my team will do well. I want to tell everybody who will be playing us: You will find it difficult to walk over Zaire." He also gave a glimpse of his humorous side when questioned by European journalists as to whether his team dealt in witchcraft. He responded by saying, "I'm the witchdoctor around here. I touch them on one leg and say, 'You score with him.'"

After a 2-0 defeat against Scotland in the opening game, Zaire next faced Vidinic's compatriots, Yugoslavia. The subsequent 9-0 victory for the Yugoslavs led to rumours of their coercion with Vidinic over the Leopard's tactics. However, these claims are refuted by Zaire's star striker, Mulamba Ndaye. Speaking in 1998 he said,

"It was said then that he'd betrayed the team's secrets to the opposition, I'm not in on the secrets of the gods, but honestly I don't think so. Vidinic was very professional in his attitude to everyone. He was simply misunderstood by our leaders and part of the national press..... Looking back on it, with the benefit of hindsight, I can that Vidinic had nothing to do with the debacle."

During the Yugoslavia game, Vidinic had taken the seemingly strange decision to replace his goalkeeper, Mwamba Kazadi, after just twenty minutes and with the score already at 3-0. This action further fuelled the rumours of his colusion with opposition. At the the post-match press conference, Vidinic wouldn't discuss the reasons behind the substitution, saying that they would remain a 'state secret,' adding further to speculation that the team was being controlled by political forces. Eventually he promised to reveal all the following day and in an interview with Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland, he gave his explanation:

"Mr Lockwa, the representative of the Ministry of Sport, said after the third Yugoslav goal, 'Take that keeper off.' I did." It was rumoured that Kazidi's replacement, Dimi Tubilandu, was a personal favourite of one of President Mobutu's generals, but within seconds of coming on and without touching the ball, he'd conceded the fourth goal. Significantly, the interview with Vidinic took place outside the Zairean hotel, the coach and his players only speaking to the press there because officials from the Ministry of Sport were inside. "I assure you: I'll never again give the government permission to make changes to my team," pledged Vidinic.

Towards the end of the Yugoslavia game, the TV cameras panned across the forlorn looking faces on the the Zairian bench, the chain-smoking Vidinic looking particularly despondent. ITV commentator Gerald Sinstadt was prompted to describe him thus: "(Vidinic has) the face of a resigned man....possibly the face of a man about to resign, I would think."

Mulamba Ndaye

Mulamba Ndaye protests his innocence after his sending off against Yugoslavia




Just prior to the 1974 World Cup, Zaire became Champions of Africa for the second time (the first being in 1968 as Congo, the country changing its name in 1971). Their hero was undoubtedly striker Mulamba Ndaye whose nine goals in the tournament held in Egypt is still a record today. In the final against Zambia he scored all four of his team's goals - Zaire winning 2-0 in a replay after a 2-2 draw - and was awarded his country's highest honour, the 'National Order of the Leopard.' Ndaye himself recalls that this was a golden era for Zairian football: "The country was stable and prosperous then. People had plenty to do and very few worries. President Mobutu was mad about football, and wanted to follow the example of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana by developing the game. Everything was great. We used to travel for continental fixtures in a style befitting the country. Good coaches rushed to come and work in Zaire."

However, Egypt proved to be the zenith for both Zairian football and Ndaye's career. At the World Cup he suffered a personal nightmare. After an anonymous performance in the opening game against Scotland, he was sent off against Yugoslavia in the second game for apparently kicking the referee, and was subsequently suspended for the encounter with Brazil. However, as Ndaye explained, his red card was a case of mistaken identity: "You can tell from the referee's behaviour that they can't tell us apart. And they don't try to either. I cried terribly when I was sent off. I told the referee that it wasn't me, and Mwepu said, 'I did it, not he.' But the referee wasn't interested. All the referees here are against the black race."

After 1974, the Zairian team's fall from grace was as spectacular as its rise. They failed to qualify for the 1976 Montreal Olympics, lost in the first round of their African Nations Cup defence in the same year and were withdrawn from qualification for the 1978 World Cup by a government losing interest in their fortunes. However, they came close to qualification for the 1982 World Cup in Spain, losing out to eventual qualifiers Cameroon in the third round/semi-finals following victories over Mozambique and Madagascar. The Leopards actually won the home leg against the 'Indomitable Lions' (1-0), but suffered a 6-1 thrashing in the return leg in Yauonde. The haphazard nature of the country's football continued when they did not even enter qualifying for Mexico '86.

"That (1974) was definitely Zairian football's greatest year; the year when we swept aside everything in our path," recalls Ndaye. "But it was also the year in which Zairian football began its fall. As they say, it's easy to reach the summit; the difficult bit is to stay there. It's not just the football that went downhill. The whole country was hurtling towards an abyss."

Ndaye suffered personal tragedy in 1994 when, having been honoured by CAF at the Nations Cup in Tunisia, he was shot in the leg by renegade soldiers on his return home - the soldiers believing that he was carrying large sums of money from his award in Tunis. Four years later at the African Nations Cup in Burkino Faso, special envoys from the Voix du Congo radio station announced that Ndaye had been killed in a diamond mining accident in Angola and a minute's silence was held in his honour. The great man was, in fact, living homeless and penniless in South Africa.

"News as important as that of someone's death should be properly checked out before being announced," says Ndaye. "The Congolese leadership should have made enquiries to check whether it was true......(but) they don't have time to bother with wandering Congolese like me . In Africa, heroes are what we make of them. During your glory days they exalt you to the heavens. Then when you;re no longer in the limelight they forget about you, reject you. The history of Africa could be written in such terms."

THAT strip!

The Zaire team during World Cup Qualification - this time with white shorts!

Zaire's green and yellow strip is one of the iconic kits from the 1970s World Cups. They actually wore different variations of the colours for each of their games in West Germany. For the opener against Scotland they sported yellow shirts with green shorts, whilst in the second ill-fated match against Yugoslavia they wore all-green. For the final game against Brazil, the green shirts remained but were accompanied this time by yellow shorts, matching their opponents' equally striking kit.

Both the yellow and green shirts featured a huge picture of a leopard attacking a football, although the green shirts used in West Germany were slightly different to those used in the qualification games in that they sported a yellow rather than a red leopard. Retro versions of Zaire's World Cup shirts are still available and extremely popular today.

Mafuila 'Ricky' Mavuba

Rio Mavuba

At the end of his football career, Zaire's skillful midfielder Mafuila 'Ricky' Mavuba, know as 'The Black Sorcerer' or 'The Wizard,' moved to Angola with his family. In 1984, the country's civil war forced him to flee to France, and whilst at sea his son, Rio (River), was born. Sadly, Rio's mother died when he was two; his father also passing away in 1997.


To cope with his grief, Rio threw himself into his football and currently plays for French Ligue one team, Lille, having previous played for Bordeaux and Spanish side, Villareal. In 2004 he made his French international debut and he currently has six caps for his adopted nation.


Former DR Congo coach Claude Le Roy, tried to persuade Rio to play for his father's homeland and he could also have played for Angola. However, with no nationality stated on his passport, but simply the words, 'born at sea,' Rio opted for France.

Zaire's 1974 Panini stickers

In 1974, Zaire became the first Sub-Saharan African nation to qualify for the World Cup Finals in West Germany. Their role as tournament outsiders was exemplified by the fact that they were only allocated a single page in the Panini sticker album! Fellow World Cup debutants Australia and Haiti also suffered the same fate, although East Germany (also making their first Finals appearance) had a double page spread!



The Leopards of Zaire endured an ignominious campaign losing all three games, including a 9-0 drubbing by Yugoslavia where goalkeeper Mwamba Kazadi (pictured) was substituted after conceding three goals in the opening twenty minutes. His performances throughout the tournament were erratic to say the least. Against Scotland in the opening game he fumbled a tame Joe Jordan header over the line, but then made some miraculous saves as the Africans kept the score down to a respectable two-goal deficit. After his substitution against the Yugoslavs (a decision apparently enforced on Zaire coach Blagoje Vidinic by government officials), Kazadi dived over a bouncing cross by Brazil's Valdimiro to gift the reigning World Champions a crucial third goal; one which saw the Scots eliminated.



Zaire did not enter the 1978 World Cup, but Kazadi played in the 1982 qualifiers, one of only two members of the '74 squad (Boba Lobilo being the other) to do so. Both players were also African Footballer of the year runners-up, in 1973 and '74 respectively. On their humiliating return from West Germany, the majority of the players faded into anonymity, Kazadi himself sadly dying in poverty at a relatively young age. However, winger Etepe Kakoko who, as ITV commentator Gerald Sinstadt informed us during the Yugoslavia game, "once ran-down a zebra," did go onto play in the West German lower leagues. His son, Yannick, also currently plays in Germany for Sp Vgg Greuther Furth.


Also featured is Kazadi's younger brother, Tshimen Buhanga, described as the 'Black Beckenbauer' before the tournament and the only Zairean to ever be named African Footballer of the Year (in 1973). He had finished second in the previous year. Kazadi was posthumously honoured by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) in 2000, when he was named DR Congo's 'Goalkeeper of the Century.' Buhanga received the nation's award for 'Player of the Century.'

Zaire's captain was Mantantu Kidumu, who famously commented before the Finals began that, "after we qualified, President Mobutu presented each one of us with a house made of brick, a new car and a holiday for us and our families to the United States. I don't know what he plans to give us if we win the World Cup, but if I'm asked, I'd be quite happy with the proceeds from a copper mine!"


Throughout the tournament, Zaire were subjected to racial stereotyping and abuse from both opponents and the world media. For example, star striker Mulamba Ndaye recalled that during the Scotland game, "number four, the captain (Billy Bremner), shouted at me a couple of times during the match, 'Nigger, hey nigger!' He spat at me too and he spat in Mana's face. Scotland's number four is a wild animal." The cartoon sticker in the top right corner of the Zaire team's page in the Panini album provides further evidence of this racial stereotyping.

Midfielder Mayanga Maku, who played some part in all three games in West Germany and later went on to coach the national side (as DR Congo), gave an interesting insight into what the players faced when they returned home from the World Cup: "There certainly wasn't such a big crowd at Kinshasa airport (as there had been for their send-off). People had believed that as the best team in Africa we would be one of the best teams in the world. People just looked at us sadly. They asked,'How did it happen? How come we lost?' We had to give answers to reporters and their questions were severe. We had to explain that up against high-level professionals, we couldn't, unfortunately, match them." Maku later moved to Belgium, living in the Matonge district of Brussels alongside many of his exiled compatriots.





On their return, the entire Zaire squad were also summoned to meet with Mobutu as midfielder Adelard Mayanga recalls: "All the players heard about it on the radio or via television. It was the day after we got back. The instruction was that we had to meet at his private office. He didn't shout, but he was absolutely firm. He told us, 'I gather that certain players, rather than wanting to honour the pride of the nation, are thinking about transfers abroard. I can tell you now that you are not going to be like the Senegalese, the Ivorians, the Cameroonians, who go and play overseas!' We understood because, standing there in front of us, he was really furious. Of course we didn't talk about the bonuses. To this day, they still havenot been paid. We were frightened. Personally, I felt threatened."