Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Pierre Ndaye Mulamba | ||||||||||||||||
Date of birth | 4 November 1948 | ||||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Luluabourg, Belgian Congo | ||||||||||||||||
Date of death | 26 January 2019 | (aged 70)||||||||||||||||
Place of death | Johannesburg, South Africa | ||||||||||||||||
Position(s) | Forward | ||||||||||||||||
Youth career | |||||||||||||||||
1962–1964 | Renaissance du Kasaï | ||||||||||||||||
Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | Apps | ( Gls) | ||||||||||||||
1964–1971 | Renaissance du Kasaï | ||||||||||||||||
1971–1972 | AS Bantous | ||||||||||||||||
1972–1988 | AS Vita Club | 224 | (116) | ||||||||||||||
International career | |||||||||||||||||
1967–1976 | Zaire [1] | 20 | (10) | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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*Club domestic league appearances and goals |
Pierre Ndaye Mulamba (4 November 1948 – 26 January 2019) was a footballer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, who played as a forward. He was nicknamed "Mutumbula" ("assassin") and "Volvo". [2] [3]
Mulamba was born in Luluabourg (now Kananga) in 1948. [4] In 1973, he starred for AS Vita Club of Kinshasa, who won the African Cup of Champions Clubs. [3] He was a second-half substitute for the Zaire national team against Morocco in the decisive match in qualification for the 1974 World Cup. [5] In 1974 Mulamba played for Zaire in both the African Cup of Nations in Egypt [6] and the FIFA World Cup in West Germany. In Egypt he scored nine goals, still a record, [7] as Zaire won the tournament. Mulamba was named Player of the Tournament and was awarded the National Order of the Leopard by President Mobutu Sese Seko. [3] In Germany, he captained the team, [7] and played in the 2–0 defeat by Scotland, [8] but was sent off after 22 minutes against Yugoslavia. [8] Zaire were already losing 4–0 by then, and finally lost 9–0. [8] Mulamba said later that the team had underperformed, either in protest or from loss of morale, after not receiving a promised $45,000 match bonus. [2] [3]
In 1994, Mulamba was honoured at the 1994 African Cup of Nations in Tunisia. [3] On returning to Zaire, he was shot in the leg by robbers who mistakenly assumed a former sports star would be a wealthy target. [9] [2] [3] [7] He was sheltered by Emmanuel Paye-Paye for eight months' recuperation. [3] During the First Congo War, Mulamba's eldest son was killed and in 1996 he fled to South Africa as a refugee, alone and destitute. [2] He went to Johannesburg and then Cape Town, where he was taken in by a family in a township. [2] In 1998, a minute's silence was held at the African Cup of Nations in Burkina Faso after an erroneous report that Mulamba had died in a diamond mining accident in Angola. [3] By then Mulamba was unemployed and drinking heavily. [3]
By 2010 Mulamba was working as a coach of local amateur teams and had married a local woman. [2] Forgotten Gold, a documentary filmed in 2008–09, follows him in South Africa and on a visit back to Congo. [7] [10] He also met with Danny Jordaan, head of the organising committee for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. [7]
Mulamba suffered from heart, kidney and knee problems in later life and was a wheelchair user. [11] [12] He lived in poverty and without recognition in the Khayelitsha township of Cape Town. [11] He died in Johannesburg on 26 January 2019. [12] [11] [13]