Patson Daka, Zambia’s top bagsman, has completed a free transfer to Hamburger SV after departing English outfit Leicester City FC last month. The striker has joined the German club on a one-year deal with an option to extend for a year.
Daka scored 29 goals in 165 matches across all competitions during his five-year stay at Leicester City, winning the FA Community Shield and EFL Championship titles.
Having set Leicester City’s club record of six goals in European competitions, Daka will now embark on his German adventure, looking to get among the goals in the 2026-27 campaign.
The 27-year-old will draw inspiration from his countrymen who have gone before him in the German topflight. BolaNews unveils the list of Zambian players to feature in the Bundesliga throughout the league’s history.
Andrew Sinkala
In 1999, FC Bayern Munich signed Andrew Sinkala from Zambian club Nchanga Rangers FC to represent their reserve team. He got a run in the team almost immediately, starting matches with Bayern Munich II in the Regionalliga Süd, which was Germany’s third tier at the time.
After netting three goals in his first 17 appearances, the defender-cum-midfielder was named in Bayern Munich’s matchday squad for Bundesliga encounters against 1860 Munich and Borussia Dortmund. In December 1999, Ottmar Hitzfeld handed Sinkala his German Bundesliga debut, bringing him on in the 79th minute of Bayern Munich’s 3-0 win vs. FC Hansa Hostock.
Being 20 years and 176 days at the time, Sinkala remained the youngest Zambian player to play in any of Europe’s top five leagues until Cagliari Calcio’s Joseph Liteta broke the record last year.
Sinkala did not make another appearance for Bayern Munich in the German Bundesliga and eventually moved to 1.FC Köln for €75,000 in January 2001. In five years at Köln, he played 36 topflight matches and scored three goals.
He had a two-year stint at SC Paderborn 07 in the second tier from 2006 before joining FC Augsburg, where he became a key player, helping them gain promotion to the Bundesliga in 2011. Sinkala featured 12 times in the league during the 2011-12 season with Augsburg in what was his final campaign in the German topflight.
Overall, he tallied three goals in 49 games in the Bundesliga before representing multiple German clubs in lower tiers until his retirement.
Moses Sichone
Another Nchanga Rangers star trekked from Zambia to Germany in 1999, becoming a player of 1. FC Köln, who initially competed in the 2. Bundesliga before getting promoted in 2000. Sichone was signed for €255,000 from the Zambian club.
He first participated in a German Bundesliga match in August 2000, starting an emphatic 4-1 win against Frankfurt. The defender was ever-present in Köln’s backline that season, racking up 26 topflight appearances.
In the business end of the same campaign on February 3, 2001, Sichone started alongside new signing and compatriot Sinkala in a Bundesliga encounter vs SC Freiburg. The duo went on to play 27 matches together at Köln across all competitions, with ten of them coming in the German topflight.
After playing 62 Bundesliga matches in three campaigns during his half-decade at the club, Sichone sought a new adventure, signing for second-tier outfit Alemannia Aachen in 2004. The centre-back played a key role in defence as Alemannia Aachen gained promotion to the German first tier in 2006.
In March 2007, he broke his scoring duck in the Bundesliga, netting the consolation goal as Alemannia Aachen fell 3-1 to VfB Stuttgart. Sichone went on to amass a total of 83 appearances combined for 1.FC Köln and Alemannia Aachen in the German topflight, the most by any Zambian player to date.
Sichone joined Kickers Offenbach in 2007 as a free agent before moving across lower-tier clubs in Germany, amidst a stint in Cyprus.
Christopher Katongo
Arminia Bielefeld snapped up Katongo from Danish side Bröndby IF for €2 million in 2008, bringing him to the Bundesliga. In the process, he broke the Zambian transfer record fee, becoming his nation’s most expensive player.
In the 2008-09 Bundesliga season, Katongo played every single match for which he was available, featuring in 33 of the 34 league games. The only exception was a home fixture vs VfL Wolfsburg, which he missed after picking up two yellow cards in a 1-0 win at Karlsruher SC in March.
The striker had three league goals to his name, becoming Zambia’s joint all-time top scorer in the German topflight with Andrew Sinkala. The record-equalling goal came in a 2-2 stalemate with VfB Stuttgart in May, 2009.
Hamburger SV’s latest acquisition, Patson Daka, will fancy not only breaking that goal record but extending it by a significant margin.
For Katongo, that would remain his only season in the German Bundesliga as Arminia Bielefeld suffered relegation at the end of that campaign after finishing bottom of the league.
He netted seven goals in 28 matches in the 2. Bundesliga with Arminia Bielefeld the next season before being sold to Greek club Skoda Xanthi for €500,000. The following season, Katongo joined Chinese side HN Jianye and it was while playing for this club that he captained Zambia to the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title.
