 Bwalya is pointing the way for Zambian football |
Zambians often joke that sales of maps soared during the Seoul Olympics as millions of Italians tried to locate the African country that had pulled off a stunning 4-0 victory over the Azzurri.
That was 16 years ago.
A plane crash virtually wiped out the Zambian football team in 1993 and though the side was rebuilt, other problems have since taken a serious toll.
Collapsed infrastructure and development programmes, a dearth of talent, a shortage of cash and the widespread nature of Aids have all conspired to remove Zambia from the planet's footballing map to the chagrin of millions in the soccer-loving nation.
 |  Zambian football needs to come to the level of its previous success and we have a new start with the Olympic team |
Last August, the country turned to Kalusha Bwalya, who single-handedly destroyed Italy in Seoul 1988 with a hat-trick and an assist, appointing him coach with a mandate to recreate the South Korea dream and lift the domestic game from the abyss.
Bwalya has a huge task.
Not only is he is in charge of all teams, scouting and development, but he also oversees administration as deputy president of the Football Association of Zambia (Faz).
"Zambian football needs to come to the level of its previous success and we have a new start with the under-23 team," the 1988 African Footballer of the Year.
"Our priority is to get good results and get to the Olympics.
"We are all very positive about this."
Drawn with Ghana, Algeria and South Africa in qualifying Group D, Zambia have 10 points, just leading Ghana on goals scored and are one good result away from reaching Athens 2004.
Should Zambia avoid defeat in Ghana on the weekend of 26-28 March, Bwalya will have returned the southern Africans to the Olympic stage for the first time since his heroic feats of 1988.
The coach says there is plenty at stake for the southern African country of 10 million people, which was gravely disappointed after Chipolopolo failed to qualify for the 2004 Cup of Nations in Tunisia (pipped to qualification by Benin) and were then beaten in the regional Cosafa Cup semi-finals by Malawi.
Yet there are those who see a revival in the fortunes of Zambian football.
"For Athens, there is great hope now," said Ponga Liwewe, a Zambian journalist who writes for, among other publications, the London-based African Soccer magazine.
"A new generation of players has emerged from the efforts of a few individuals running small academies and one or two teams with youth programmes.
"It is a step in the right direction but we are still a long way from where we came from, the standards of 1988."
 Christopher Katongo celebrates another Zambian goal |
At the Seoul Olympics that year, Zambia drew 2-2 with Iraq before pulling off 4-0 victories over Guatemala and Italy in the group stages, before succumbing to European giants West Germany in the quarter-finals.
Just five years after such dazzling Olympic heights, Zambian football plummeted to tragic depths when eighteen players and five officials died when their military plane crashed as the team was travelling to a World Cup qualifying match in Senegal.
Bwalya survived the April 1993 disaster because he did not travel with the team, so he was able to watch the national team quickly rebuild.
Remarkably, the Chipolopolo reached the final of the 1994 Cup of Nations, only to lose to Nigeria, and the team then failed by a whisker to qualify for the 1994 World Cup.
And Bwalya argues that once that generation of players slid past, Zambian football virtually came to its knees.
Now the man guiding Zambia's footballing dreams has pinned hopes of rekindling Olympic glory on Collins Mbesuma, Songwe Chalwe, Christopher Katongo, Noel Mwandila and Felix Katongo -- budding talents from Zambia's copperbelt, home to most of the leading players of the past.
Should these players emerge with a draw or win from Ghana later this month, they will give a massive fillip to football in their homeland.
"Our game is in a crisis due to financial constraints," admitted Faz head Teddy Mulonga.
"We need about $1.2 million each year to organise football properly."
A place on Athens' Olympic stage would be a step in the right direction to attracting the investment Zambian football desperately needs.
MMIX
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