The Zambia National Team jersey number 11 has a long history and is considered iconic.
The majority of the players who wore the shirt were also named captains of the squad and are considered football legends in Zambia.
The most recent player to wear the jersey was former Brighton and Hove Albion midfielder Enock Mwepu. Others include 1988 African Footballer of the Year award winner Kalushya Bwalya and 2012 Africa Cup of Nations winning captain Christopher Katongo.
BolaNews shines the light on the last three players to wear Zambia’s iconic jersey number 11.
The Great Kalu
While several excellent players wore number 11, Kalushya Bwalya made it more famous than his predecessors from 1983 to 2004. He appeared in 87 games for the Chipolopolo, scoring 39 international goals.
He is regarded as Africa’s most famous “Number 11” after captaining the revived Zambia national team to the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations final, which they lost to Nigeria, a year after the tragic loss of the entire national team in the infamous Atlantic Ocean plane crash that occurred in Gabon in 1993.
In 1996, he led his national side to a third-place finish at the next Cup of Nations, where he received the Best Player and Golden Boot Awards after finishing as the tournament’s top scorer with 5 goals.
Bwalya also had 23 games and scored 10 goals in the Africa Cup of Nations, making him the highest Zambian scorer in that competition, having participated in six editions of the tournament in 1986, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2000.
He was also a member of the team that defeated Italy in the historic 4-0 victory at the 1988 Olympic Games, where he scored a hat-trick. That same year, he was voted the African Player of the Year.
Bwalya’s name goes down in football history as one of the best number 11s in Africa, earning him the moniker Great Kalu.
Captain Fantastic Katongo
Christopher Katongo is another Chipolopolo player to wear the iconic number 11 shirt.
Many consider him to be Zambia’s most successful national team captain, as he was the first to lead the Chipolopolo Boys to their first Africa Cup of Nations victory in 2012 after beating Ivory Coast in the final.
Katongo is also the second-highest Zambian goal scorer at the Africa Cup, with seven goals in 17 matches after making five appearances at the finals in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2013.
He was capped 97 times and scored 23 goals for Zambia across all competitions from his debut in 2003 to 2016, when he hung his boots.
He inherited the “number 11” jersey from Bwalya and lived up to the expectations of many.
The Computer
Enock Mwepu is the last player to wear the jersey number 11. He was given the famous shirt in 2017 after being promoted to the senior national squad following a tremendous run with the Zambia under-20 national team, which won the Africa Cup and advanced to the quarterfinals of the under-20 World Cup.
Mwepu was arguably one of the most complete midfielders to ever wear the Zambian national team jerseys, earning him the captaincy at the age of 23. He was Zambia’s youngest captain in recent years.
His dream of matching his predecessors’ successes with the Chipolopolo jersey number 11 was sadly dashed when he was forced to retire from football at the age of 24 owing to a hereditary heart issue in 2021.
Despite his short stint with the national team, he maintained the number 11 legacy alive, appearing in 23 games and scoring six goals for the Chipolopolo Boys including in the 2023 AfCON qualifying campaign.
While a new captain will be announced soon, many Zambians are wondering who should wear the legendary number 11 jersey in the current Chipolopolo squad.
