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Thursday, January 25, 2001 - Web posted at 9:12:38 AM GMT Kalusha announces retirement after 21-year playing career NEW YORK - Zambian Kalusha Bwalya, a former African Footballer of the Year, has announced his retirement from soccer, ending an illustrious 21-year playing career that was marked by both triumph and tragedy. The 37-year-old former PSV Eindhoven and Club America midfielder said in a telephone interview from Mexico City that he had spurned offers to continue playing after ending the Mexican winter season with Second Division Correcaminos last month. Kalusha, voted Africa's best player in 1988 and Zambia's former skipper, led a young Zambian side to the 1994 African Nations' Cup final less than a year after a plane crash wiped out most of the central African nation's top players, has joined the coaching staff of Second Division Mexican City side Potros Marte. He began work as an assistant to Marte manager Eduardo Rergis last week, and is believed to be the first African to take up a coaching position in Latin America. Kalusha has been in Mexico since joining Club America from Dutch side PSV Eindhoven in 1994." "It's a new chapter for me and I'm enjoying it," he said. He expressed his desire to one day coach a top side in either Europe or Mexico, saying: "My ambition is to go as far as I can. I want to reach the top." "Kalusha said that he had quit the game on his own terms and with a lot of football still left in him." "I feel satisfied with my playing career and I am at peace with myself." "Football has been good to me in terms of fitness. I'm very fit at 37, unlike other players who've been forced to retire at an early age on account of injuries." "Looking back at his career, which began in 1979 at age 16, Kalusha counted the camaraderie he'd enjoyed with his Mufulira Wanderers teammates in Zambia, establishing himself with his first European club, Belgium's Cercle Bruges, and Dutch title victories with PSV, among his greatest moments. He said his hat-trick for Zambia in their 4-0 destruction of Italy in the 1988 Olympic Games tournament in Korea - widely regarded as his finest hour - was another unforgettable moment. His darkest moment, however, also remains indelibly seared in many soccer fans' collective memory: the morning of April 28, 1993 when he woke up in Eindhoven to news that his Zambia national teammates had all perished in a plane crash off the coast of Libreville, Gabon, the night before. The team was en-route to Senegal where Kalusha, the captain, was going to join them for a World Cup qualifier. Kalusha and another European-based professional who was not on the doomed plane, Johnston Bwalya (no relation), formed the nucleus of the new Zambian team that picked up the banner of their fallen comrades. Both Bwalyas struck in an emotional come-from-behind 2-1 win over Morocco in the rebuilt squad's first international three months after the crash. With Kalusha picking up most of the slack, Zambia came within a goal of qualifying for the 1994 World Cup finals. The inspirational skipper would later lead the young Zambian side to the 1994 African Nations' Cup final in Tunisia, where they lost 2-1 to Nigeria in the championship match. Kalusha again captained the Zambians to a third-place finish in the 1996 Nations' Cup finals in South Africa, finishing as top scorer with five goals. He made a total of six appearances in the Nations' Cup before ending his international career in the 2000 championship co-hosted by Nigeria and Ghana. A year earlier, however, Kalusha had suffered another personal tragedy when his brother Benjamin, a rising coach two years his senior, died after falling sick while on international duty with Zambia in Madagascar. - Nampa-Reuters |
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