Mwepu Ilunga

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Mwepu Ilunga
Personal information
Full name Joseph Mwepu Ilunga
Date of birth (1949-08-22)22 August 1949
Place of birth Belgian Congo
Date of death 8 May 2015(2015-05-08) (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[]

  1. ^ Appearances for Congo-Kinshasa National Team
  2. ^ Zaïre's World Cup squad 1974 - Planet World Cup
  3. ^ a b Foot: l’ancien Léopard Joseph Ilunga Mwepu décédé à l’âge de 66 ans - Radio Okapi (in French)
  4. ^ "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)
  5. ^ "The most extreme case of a professional footballer's ignorance of the game's most basic rules". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 March 2006.
  6. ^ "BBC Sport - Football - Zaire free-kick farce explained". BBC News. 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2013-11-15.
  7. ^ Official FIFA match report Archived 2006-11-10 at the Wayback Machine (Accessed June 10, 2006)
  8. ^ BBC Sport - "1974: Zaire's show of shame" (Accessed June 10, 2006)
  9. ^ "Former Zaire defender Mwepu Ilunga dies aged 66 after long illness". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 May 2015.

External links[]

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