Mwepu Ilunga
Personal information | |||
---|---|---|---|
Full name | Joseph Mwepu Ilunga | ||
Date of birth | 22 August 1949 | ||
Place of birth | Belgian Congo | ||
Date of death | 8 May 2015 | (aged 65)||
Place of death | Kinshasa, DR Congo | ||
Position(s) | Defender | ||
Senior career* | |||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
TP Mazembe | |||
National team | |||
1971–1975 | Zaïre[1] | 21 | (0) |
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only |
Joseph Mwepu Ilunga (22 August 1949 – 8 May 2015) was a football defender from Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). His name is also written as Alunga Mwepu.
Club career[]
Ilunga played club football for Englebert TP Mazembe in his native Zaire,[2] with whom he won the 1967 African Cup of Champions and 1968 African Cup of Champions.[3]
International career[]
Ilunga played for his country, then called Zaire, during the 1974 FIFA World Cup. During a group match against Brazil, he ran out of his team's defensive wall and kicked away a free kick before the ball was in play.[4] He was subsequently cautioned, but some commentators felt that he seemed oblivious as to what he had done wrong.[5] However, Ilunga claimed that he was quite aware of the rules – as would be expected from an experienced player in a successful side – and was hoping that the referee would send him off. The intended red card would have been a protest against his country's authorities, who were alleged to be depriving the players of their rightful earnings.[6]
Zaire went on to lose that match 3–0, and by not getting a bigger loss Ilunga saved his and all his teammates' lives, as Zaire's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko would have killed them all in that case.[7] They had already lost their first two matches to Scotland 2–0 and Yugoslavia 9–0.
Zaire were then the first sub-Saharan African team to qualify for the World Cup finals; however, during the tournament the players discovered they would not be paid.[8]
Death[]
Ilunga died in May 2015 after a long illness[9] in the Saint-Joseph de Limete Hospital, Kinshasa.[3]
References[]
- ^ Appearances for Congo-Kinshasa National Team
- ^ Zaïre's World Cup squad 1974 - Planet World Cup
- ^ a b Foot: l’ancien Léopard Joseph Ilunga Mwepu décédé à l’âge de 66 ans - Radio Okapi (in French)
- ^ "Top 50 football moments". Archived from the original on December 11, 2006. Retrieved 2008-03-12.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) (Accessed June 10, 2006)
- ^ "The most extreme case of a professional footballer's ignorance of the game's most basic rules". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 March 2006.
- ^ "BBC Sport - Football - Zaire free-kick farce explained". BBC News. 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2013-11-15.
- ^ Official FIFA match report Archived 2006-11-10 at the Wayback Machine (Accessed June 10, 2006)
- ^ BBC Sport - "1974: Zaire's show of shame" (Accessed June 10, 2006)
- ^ "Former Zaire defender Mwepu Ilunga dies aged 66 after long illness". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
External links[]
- Mwepu Ilunga's defensive flair on YouTube
- Mwepu Ilunga – FIFA competition record (archived)
- 1949 births
- 2015 deaths
- Africa Cup of Nations-winning players
- 1974 FIFA World Cup players
- 1974 African Cup of Nations players
- Democratic Republic of the Congo footballers
- Democratic Republic of the Congo international footballers
- TP Mazembe players
- Association football defenders