THE RISE AND RISE OF ZESCO UNITED

The swinging sixties and seventies are recognised as the glory days of the Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix and the miniskirt as a symbol of liberation and excesses of a generation that sought to live unshackled lives.

In Zambia, our own version, Zamrock, took the nation by storm. Zambia’s Copperbelt replicated this cultural phenomena with it’s own flavour. This part of the country has always chosen it’s own path and it’s own destiny. The Copperbelt’s social and culture scene evolved differently from that of the artificial and spurious Lusaka crowd, so too did it’s football, in a way even more powerfully than those now-forgotten tunes did.

Football is taken seriously in this part of the country and is entrenched in the very fabric of society. Nothing else matters to the games followers as much as the allegiance to one’s team.

The teams that evolved in the mining communities were the heart and soul of Zambian football. This love affair went on for decades and well into the nineties. When Zambia played Zaire in a world cup qualifying match in Lusaka in 1989, all but one of the players in the starting line up were of Copperbelt origin; Derby Makinka being the only exception.

This was the status quo in Zambian football until the mid-2000’s when privatization took hold. The mining companies imploded as the change of ownership took place and Zambia, as we knew it irretrievably changed. In the 21-year period between 1980 and 2001, only two non-mining teams won the football league, Green Buffaloes in 1981 and Kabwe Warriors in 1987. The rest of the titles were shared by Nkana, Power Dynamos, Mufulira Wanderers and Nchanga Rangers.

The traditional giants and other mining teams all fell on hard times and the world order began to change. In the quest for survival, those that adapt fastest survive and in the case of Zambian football, one of the first teams to reinvent itself was ZESCO United football club. Once an also-ran team that was considered a nice-to-have rather than a genuine contender, ZESCO United, metamorphosed into the most successful Zambian club of the last two decades.

From signing unheralded players whose careers came and went without any discernible impact in fans memories, to becoming the first Zambian team to reach the group stage of the CAF Champions League, and then to get to the semi-final, the phenomenal rise of the club has seen it now ranked among the elite in African club football and contributed to the increase from two to four Zambian clubs in continental football.

The first ZESCO United league success came in 2007, after Red Arrows in 2004 and Zanaco in 2005 and 2006 had broken the mold. With the privatised mining companies abandoning their social responsibility mandate and leaving their clubs to sink or swim, Zesco Limited, unencumbered by the turbulence of a haphazard privatisation, provided the club with the firm foundations required to  transform into one of Africa’s top club sides.

The company made the conscious decision to provide the club with a management team that would take it to new heights. The management team were regular visitors to the annual Soccerex Forum where the world’s top football mangers converge to exchange ideas. They adopted best practice policies and ideas to take the club to the top of the local order, while other clubs were still stuck in the ways of the past.

By 2010, Zesco United had bagged three league titles in four seasons, eclipsing teams that had taken several decades to bag a similar number of successes. The quest for the title of the best team in Zambia now swung from the battle of the mining giants to one between the bankers, Zanaco and the now-dominant ZESCO United team.

The back-and-forth battle swung first one way, then the other. After 2010, it would take three timeless years, until 2014, before ZESCO United retuned to league success. In a closely contested race with Power Dynamos, the Copperbelt Energy Corporation-led team ran them close but faltered at the last hurdle as the more resilient ZESCO United team hung on for a well-deserved fourth title.

In order for ZESCO United Football Club to achieve total success, the philosophy of being a word-class team in the boardroom had to be replicated on the pitch and the club sought the services of the best coaches available in the country. Then club sought coaches whose drive to succeed was second to none. Wedson Nyirenda led the team for several years and during this era, the team played a high tempo, high intensity game that required the ball to be played up early and for players to use pace in the wide positions to feed the strikers. It was a formula that yielded results for several seasons before the need to make a change eventually arrived.

Interestingly, George Lwandamina, when he arrived, was equally driven yet had a vastly different football philosophy and credit to the clubs’ management, they were adaptive enough to buy into it despite the obvious differences between the two approaches. Lwandamina preferred a slow build up based on possession and movement. His team’s moved the ball around until they found or created the gaps to break down their opponents.

The two philosophies, though diametrically opposed, nonetheless achieved the desired results and led the club to many of its greatest achievements of the post-ZCCM football era.

On the field, again management, through their coaches sought to keep the common thread of quality-first running through to the team.

Earlier Nicholas Zulu, Enock Sakala, Jonas Sakuwaha and later Winston Kalengo all made their mark in the ZESCO United team. They were among the cream of the local players who were vital during the earlier part of the team’s journey to the top. They played their part and passed on the baton to a new generation of local and foreign players who transformed ZESCO United into one of the most formidable sides in African football.

Today, the club have become almost permanent qualifiers to the African Champions League and Confederations Cup. Their coffers receive inflows running into hundreds of thousands of dollars every year from CAF’s coffers. They have a kit deal that ranks them the best-kitted team in the league and with decent replica sales. Their youth development structures have been in place for many years and  they are on the verge of completing a top-class football centre that will continue to develop a new generation of stars for the future.

They set the stage in the early 2000’s as trendsetters and yet, even now, two decades later, they are destined to stay at the top as they continue to sail into uncharted waters in search of even greater challenges.

Guest Author: Ponga Liwewe