DR Congo Waiting to End 52-year Wait Against Jamaica Today
Football fans in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been waiting a long time to right the wrongs of their solitary World Cup campaign in 1974.
That was the year US President Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal, the Rubik’s Cube was invented and Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle in the Congolese capital Kinshasa.
Victory for the Leopards in Tuesday’s intercontinental play-off final against Jamaica will end that 52-year wait and guarantee Africa a 10th representative at this year’s tournament in Canada, Mexico and the USA.
“I’d definitely consider it as the biggest game in my football career,” Burnley defender Axel Tuanzebe told Sportsworld on BBC World Service, while former captain Gabriel Zakuani labelled it “the biggest game in our history”.
Should DR Congo win, over 110 million people back home, as well as a huge global diaspora, will pray things go better this time than they did in West Germany, when their country competed as Zaire.
That campaign kicked off poorly with a 2-0 defeat against Scotland, careened off the tracks in a 9-0 humiliation against Yugoslavia and descended into farce during a 3-0 loss to Brazil which produced one of the World Cup’s most memorable moments.
Victory against Jamaica today will see DR Congo join a group containing Portugal, Uzbekistan and Colombia.
