RISING STARS: Meet Crawford Mwaba, A boy with big dreams

Zambia has never been short of talent and they keep coming up year in year out. Defender Crawford Mwaba is one of the new generation of players who have come on the scene and are targeting breaking into the Super League.

The 2019 COSAFA U-20 winner was born on the 5th of January in the year 2000. The ZamFoot Crew met up with the 20-year-old to discuss his life in football so far.

Mwaba opened up about his early life in football and his journey so far, from a ball boy to start playing at the age of 8 to winning the COSAFA U-20 tournament.

“I was introduced to the game by my dad’s young brother who is a former captain for Mufulira Police FC and I used to be a ball boy at times, because of the love of football I found myself playing for Kashimoto soccer Academy in Mufurila when I was only 8 years old,” Mwaba told the ZamFoot Crew.

“In 2011, I went to Lusaka and I decided to join an amateur team called sanchester johnlaing soccer academy that was in 2014 where I was featuring for the youth side before being drafted to the main team in the same year and in 2016 I was called for under 17 national team which gave me a signal upon my career and I was very happy because it was a dream come true,” he added.

In 2017 he joined Sable Bulls FC in Lusaka though it was a bit difficult for him to balance football and school. In 2018 he joined the City of Lusaka after completing his secondary school but failed to stay at woodlands stadium because of the football wrangles which was happening at the club and he only played one game before deciding to go back to Sable Bulls were he helped the team finishing the league in top 4 which got them promoted to play the 2019 transitional league in provincial division one and he made a move at the end of the season to join the Mazabuka based side Maestro United (MUZA FC).

In 2019 he was summoned to join the U-20 national team and represent the country at the cosafa under 20 tournament which was staged in Lusaka were Zambia emerged champions after beating South Africa at a fully packed Nkoloma Stadium and he played all the games and scored a spectacular goal against Botswana.

Earlier this year he was handed his first senior national team call up by coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojeviç for the four-team tournament preparations which were due to be staged in Uganda in March. He revealed to the Zamfoot crew that he learned a lot from the first senior team call.

“I learned a lot of things for we say in our language(ushumfwa pa tunono napa fingi teti omfwe)and some of the things I have learned is how to overcome things which we face during games and these are; whether, the crowd, referees and also on how to transform the game and always be alert on and off the ball,” Mwaba told the ZamFoot Crew.

Mwaba has big dreams to play in Europe’s top leagues and says he wants to give back to the community when his dreams come true.

“My objective is to become a professional football player and play for the biggest teams in Europe, the reason why I want to become a professional football player is not only for myself having titles, professional football player’ but to first of all able to support my family in hard times and also open an orphanage for I know how it feels to be an orphan,” he said.

“I would also like to support and build football academies worldwide especially in Africa so that I give children with talent and love for the game the opportunity to develop their talent to their fullest and for me to go there. It has to start from here with what am doing on and off the pitch, which is positive to my career and can help me to go places worldwide, my dream team is Manchester United and Power Dynamos,” he added.

Being an instrumental and a versatile defender, Mwaba is inspired by Liverpool’s arguably best defender in the world at the moment Virgil van Dijk.

“My role model is Virgil van Dijk and locally it’s stoppila sunzu,” he said.

“My advice to my fellow players is to put God first, hardworking, discipline, always thinks outside the box, think football, be positive, and lastly to invest well with the little money we are getting because football is a short career and no one knows about tomorrow.” He concluded.