Life is a tale that is both beautiful and ugly.Amazing how in the numerous number of tales, there are those rare individuals who came to came to write history in the uniuest handwriting.
Congolese and African football legend Mulamba Ndaye has died in South Africa at the age of 70.The former striker, who was wheelchair-bound, had been suffering from heart and kidney problems.
He still holds the record for the most number of goals scored at a single Africa Cup of Nations tournament after his nine strikes helped Zaire to their second continental title in Egypt in 1974 which also qualified them for the World Cup in Germany.
Ndaye, who captained his country at Fifa’s flagship tournament, was controversially sent off in the second group match against Yugoslavia in what was a case of mistaken identity.
He played for DR Congo’s AS Vita Club for 16 years until the age of 38, helping them to the African Cup of Champion Clubs (the forerunner to the Champions League) in 1973.
Ndaye was mistakenly thought to have died in an accident in an Angolan mine in 1998 when a minute’s silence was held in his honour before the third place playoff match between the DRC and hosts Burkina Faso.
After being honoured with a medal by the Confederation of African Football in 1994 on the 20th anniversary of his record, he was shot in the leg by four men in military uniforms who demanded the medal and money.
Fearing for his life, Ndaye subsequently fled to South Africa where he lived in poverty and virtually anonymously for many years in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha.