A woman was killed in a pedestrian crash Friday evening in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
Police in Chelsea say the crash occurred on Second Street. Officers responded around 7:15 p.m.
Officers provided aid to the woman, who police say succumbed to her injuries.
The driver stayed at the scene and is cooperating with the investigation, police said.
The crash is under investigation by the Chelsea Police Department and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
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Not all losses are created equal — and no defeat in football is worse than a banter one.
“In extra time, it’s been Klopp’s kids against the blue billion-pound bottle jobs,” said Sky Sports co-commentator Gary Neville, succinctly and indisputably establishing the dominant narrative of a surreal Carabao Cup final almost as soon as Virgil van Dijk’s glanced header had settled in the far corner of Djordje Petrovic’s net.
Liverpool had not just beaten Chelsea at Wembley (again), they had done so in a manner that validated the “mentality monsters” culture that Jurgen Klopp has cultivated — apparently throughout the age groups at Kirkby as well as the first team — over the last nine years, while mercilessly exposing the fatal flaws in the lavish investment project at Stamford Bridge funded by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital over the past two.
In the bowels of Wembley after the match, a despondent Mauricio Pochettino wearily assumed the task of pointing out the nuance in the narrative. “I don’t hear what he said but if you compare the age of the two groups, I think it is similar,” Chelsea’s head coach said when asked about Neville’s line. “Look, I have a good relationship with Gary. I don’t know how I can take his opinion, but I respect his opinion.
“We are a young team. Nothing to compare with Liverpool because they also finished with young players. It’s impossible to compare, and he knows that the dynamics are completely different. We were playing Liverpool and Chelsea, Chelsea and Liverpool, and I don’t think it’s fair to speak in this way.”
The youth vs experience dynamic at Wembley was not as clear-cut as Neville made out. Liverpool’s on-pitch XI had an older average age than Chelsea’s at the start of the match and at the start of extra time. Van Dijk, a 32-year-old now with 11 major trophies to his name, was the outstanding outfield player throughout and found the net with two headers worthy of winning a final, only one of which survived VAR review.
But the counter-argument becomes hard to sustain when the other team includes two 19-year-olds, Bobby Clark and James McConnell, who have each played fewer than 10 professional games and another (Jayden Danns) who was making his second senior appearance. Chelsea undoubtedly lost to several kids; the more important question is: did they bottle it?
Chelsea showed unmistakeable signs of nerves at Wembley. Axel Disasi twice ignited Liverpool transition attacks by fumbling the ball under little pressure. Malo Gusto, usually so sure-footed, controlled passes straight out of play on several occasions. Levi Colwill booted an attempted pass out to Ben Chilwell miles upfield and had to be told to calm down by Enzo Fernandez, who played sloppy passes with startling frequency.
Further forward, Conor Gallagher wrestled with an eerily similar cocktail of bad luck and poor composure in front of goal that afflicted fellow Cobham graduate Mason Mount against the same opponents in the same stadium in 2022.
Nevertheless, as the clock ticked towards the end of 90 minutes it was Chelsea who looked likelier winners, with Cole Palmer picking apart a Liverpool team whose legs appeared to have gone. It was at this point that Klopp made a decision that arguably no other elite coach would have made: to place the fate of a major trophy in the hands of unproven youth rather than go into retreat with experience and play for penalties.
His choice transformed this Carabao Cup final into the spiritual sequel of Chelsea’s bizarre 4-1 win over nine-man Tottenham Hotspur in November: a situation where convincing victory is the only acceptable outcome and anything less brings total humiliation. Pochettino had to guide his team through 20 nervy, aimless minutes that night before they overcame the fear of looking ridiculous — of being on the receiving end of a banter loss — and got on with winning the game.
Klopp’s own “it’s just who we are, mate” moment seemed to sink Chelsea into a similar mental crisis at Wembley that lasted for most of extra time, compounded by their fading energy levels. At half-time of their pitifully tentative showing in the added period all of Chilwell, Disasi and Moises Caicedo could be seen prostrate on the pitch receiving attention for cramp.
Not losing superseded winning as Chelsea’s top priority. “The team started to feel that maybe the penalties will be good for us,” said Pochettino, making an admission of weakness that is being held against him and this group of players in the acrimonious aftermath.
Finals define the clubs, players and coaches who contest them. Klopp has lost his fair share over the years but never through passivity, and that ironclad commitment to the idea of who Liverpool are carried the day at Wembley. Chelsea’s identity as expert winners of finals began to slip in the final years of Roman Abramovich’s ownership; this is now seven cup final defeats in their last eight visits to the national stadium, and six in a row.
Doubts about Pochettino’s ability to reverse that trend will only intensify. In five years at Tottenham, he built impressive teams who fell just short of winning and despite his avowed emphasis on the power of positive energy, his callow Chelsea were undone by Klopp’s peerless mastery of psychological momentum.
Liverpool at full strength are vastly better than Chelsea but they won the Carabao Cup final not through superior talent, but superior mentality, coupled with an unmistakeable sense of identity that binds the first team and academy together — in other words, things that Boehly and Clearlake’s money cannot simply buy.
“They need to feel the pain,” Pochettino said of his Chelsea players. The pain of this banter loss will be hard to shift, immortalised by Neville’s brutal words.
(Top image: Pochettino changes were not as effective as Klopp’s. Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
The New York Times
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CHELSEA, Manhattan (WABC) — A man is wanted for a violent attack with a baseball bat in Chelsea.
Detectives say the man struck a 25-year-old woman on the head as she walked along 7th Avenue two weeks ago.
It appears the attack was unprovoked.
The woman suffered a gash on her head along with some bruising.
The suspect is described as a man with a medium build. He was last seen wearing a black jacket, gray pants, a blue knit hat, and gray sneakers.
ALSO READ | Man biking to mosque killed in Bronx hit and run
Kemberly Richardson has more.
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WABC
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A typical afternoon at a New York City pet shop took an unexpected twist when a woman allegedly started kicking at a number of kennels inside. But the outburst didn’t stop there.
The whole ordeal only lasted a few moments — mostly caught on camera — and ended with a brutal assault against another person perusing to store.
First, cops say the woman started kicking kennels filled with puppies and when she was asked to leave by the store’s manager, police say the woman directed her anger somewhere else — and slapped a woman before walking out of the shop.
The video starts with Citipups employees telling the woman to leave the Chelsea store, but when she notices someone’s recording, she smacks the phone.
The woman moves toward the exit but stops briefly to slap a woman, a tourist visiting from Texas, across the face. Her head flys back, obviously hurt by the assault, but her attacker isn’t done yet.
The video then shows the woman reach the door and turn around to spit in the direction of the woman she just slapped.
After she makes a turn, she approaches a tourist from Texas standing in the store and slaps her across the face.
“It’s just nuts,” store manager Emilio Ortiz said.
Ortiz witnessed the bizarre encounter, and he’s also the person who captured it all on camera.
“Her hitting that woman in the face and walking out. She had nothing to do with it. That was that lady’s first time in New York. First day, she’s visiting New York and to get assaulted by some random person,” Ortiz explained.
Ortiz said on Saturday the pet shop was packed and before his camera began rolling it was a regular day. People were milling about, admiring the dogs.
Then, all of a sudden, the now wanted woman started kicking the kennels. The dogs were startled but unharmed.
The tourist, on the other hand, was badly injured. The slap left her with a bloody nose and lots of facial swelling.
Police are still trying to track down the woman, who they say could face an assault charge.
Erica Byfield
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Highlights of the Scottish Premiership match between St Mirren and Rangers.
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Cyrie Dessers put Rangers in the lead against St. Mirren after a superb assist from John Lundstram.
Highlights from the Scottish Premiership match between Hearts and Dundee.
For the current middle-aged, middle-class generation there are three main signs that you’ve “made it”, according to one observant Telegraph reader. Apparently, the list is as follows: a house with bifold doors, a Rolex on your wrist, and the pièce de résistance, a Range Rover parked on the drive.
But get your tiny violins ready. That heated leather-seat dream may be over for many of the “Rangie” set before it’s even begun. In some parts of the country, they’re becoming too expensive for many owners to keep.
It always used to be the case that Range Rovers were the preserve of the wealthy upper classes, but the introduction around a decade ago of smaller and cheaper Evoques on £400-a-month PCP arrangements changed all that.
It meant the bifold door-loving, Rolex-wearing “mass affluent” crowd, who definitely couldn’t afford a £100k Range Rover Sport, were offered a realistic entry point to the brand.
They lapped it up. Range Rover sales boomed and there are now three times more registered Range Rovers in the UK than there were before the launch of the Evoque. Some models developed long waiting lists because demand so far outstripped supply.
With more than 415,000 registered vehicles on the road (up from 50,000 at the turn of the millennium) we became a nation of Range Rover lovers. Yet the brand is divisive, and whether these 4x4s are “in” or “out”, greatly depends upon which circle you mix in.
The aspirational mass affluent crowd love Range Rovers and view them as unequivocal symbols of success and status.
These fans sit alongside the original wealthy Range Rover-loving crowd who, unfazed by the middle managers and the regional lawyers driving around in their Evoques, remain smitten with the rugged off-road vibes of their larger models and their sumptuously comfortable interiors.
The brand’s stratospheric success has not been appreciated by all, to put it politely. Enter another breed of person who could be from any walk of life, but views themselves as discerning. They probably revel in being unflashy and may enjoy tut-tutting about Range Rovers being “tacky”, “vulgar” and fit only for drug dealers and other unsavoury (but moneyed) characters.
But their disdain for the brand is mild compared to the environmentalist crowd, to whom Range Rover is practically a swear word.
This lot see them as the ultimate, ostentatious, polluting symbol of mindless capitalism. Wretched “Chelsea tractors” which deserve to be pelted with rotten eggs and detested with absolute vengeance.
Although I can appreciate some Range Rovers (I wouldn’t be seen dead in an Evoque), they have never been for me. I knew a boyfriend in secondary school wasn’t “the One” when one day he came round for tea and announced that his goal in life was to own a black Range Rover Sport.
At the time my dad drove a sky blue Citroën Picasso with picnic tables in the back which, to me, was the best car of all time.
An inverted snob in the making, you might say, but fast forward two decades and, ironically, I’ve ended up driving a black SUV, albeit from a mid-market brand, and only because my toddler’s ridiculously large buggy would not fit in the boot of our old hatchback.
You may have guessed, but my lack of love for Range Rovers remains, not that I could afford one anyway.
And that’s lucky for me because they have, it seems, become a victim of their own stonking success – Range Rovers have become more vulnerable to theft than any other brand.
One in every 100 Land Rovers were stolen, according to DVLA figures analysed by confused.com from March 2022 to March 2023. This figure rose to two in 100 for Range Rover Velar R-Dynamic HSE D180 A, which was the most targeted model. Despite Range Rover thefts falling, according to new DVLA data released this week, they remain high.
As a result of this crime wave, some Range Rovers have become almost impossible to insure for many owners in London. This is more prohibitive to ownership than the theft itself. Annual premiums have soared to five figure sums in some cases, which is simply preposterous.
One 35-year-old woman living in London’s suburbs, with six years of driving experience and no claims, was reportedly told her Range Rover Velar would cost £22,515 a year to insure, and all but two insurers refused cover at all.
This is in contrast to drivers in Sussex, where 20 insurance providers offer quotes for the same model, with the best price offered standing at £1,978 a year, which at a tenth of the cost, is still a hefty sum.
Some insurers also insist on GPS trackers and cumbersome steering wheel locks, which many drivers feel are ugly and a downright nuisance.
And it’s not just the insurance which could seriously hurt owners in the pocket. Research shows Range Rover owners can expect higher and more frequent repair costs than owners of rival vehicles.
The brand was named the least reliable manufacturer in Warrantywise’s 2022 Reliability Index rates, due to the frequency and cost of repairs. Subsequently Land Rover (which includes Range Rovers) was also named as the second least reliable brand in What Car?’s index last year.
So where does all this leave the bifold door brigade, whose high mortgage repayments have just doubled due to interest rate rises, meaning keeping up with the monthly Range Rover payments is already causing sleepless nights?
The unfortunate truth is that for some, especially in London, these eye-watering insurance payments may spell the end of the middle-class dream of owning a Range Rover.
Those who choose to sell may face a double blow, as all the insurance drama has sent used vehicle prices downwards, meaning options for a replacement car may be limited.
A Nissan or Kia parked on the drive might not exude such elite success in life, but for anyone struggling but desperate not to downgrade just yet, some good news.
I hear the second hand watch market is booming, so if you can bear to part with it, you might get a good price for that Rolex.
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‘My Land Rover nearly killed me – but the dealer has fobbed me off for a year’
Diogo Jota gets his second goal of the game to all but confirm the three points for Liverpool.
Ivan Toney announces his return by scoring a superb free-kick against Nottingham Forest.
West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus scored with a sublime strike for Ghana to give the Black Stars the lead against Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast.
On Back Pages Tonight, The Times’ chief sports reporter Martyn Ziegler discusses Jordan Henderson’s pay during his time in Saudi Arabia.
Christian Pulisic is perched on a bar stool in the old clubhouse overlooking the first-team training pitch at Milanello, AC Milan’s training ground.
He makes a hand gesture, one he didn’t need the past six months living in Italy to learn. Pulisic is talking about himself as one of the “older guys” on the USMNT and, as he does so, he is sure to put air quotes around it.
Nearby is a portrait of Milan legend Paolo Maldini lifting a trophy, a player who retired in his forties. Pulisic isn’t that age yet. He turned 25 shortly after joining Milan from Chelsea in August. But as the United States get ready to host the Copa America as a guest competing nation this summer, the first newly-expanded 32-team Club World Cup the following year and then the biggest men’s World Cup finals yet, with 48 countries taking part, in 2026, he is already beginning to think about his legacy.
“I remember watching World Cups as a kid and watching (Clint) Dempsey scoring goals in the World Cup,” he says, “(Landon) Donovan scoring the winning goal (against Algeria in South Africa in 2010). It’s moments like that, that stick in kids’ minds and can really inspire a generation, which is what those moments did for me.”
Pulisic, though, is hoping to provide some of his own.
There’s a monotone zeal when he speaks. For all the curiosity about his hobbies outside of football, notably golf and chess — the board game with which Italy’s top-flight Serie A, a league renowned for its tactics and strategy, often gets compared — his focus on his own game is unflinching; his self-awareness of his influence acute.
“Watching someone that’s from where you’re from and playing at the highest level and showing the world we can compete and be the best; you know, compete with the best,” he explains. “For me, that’s what it’s all about. If I can inspire kids, especially back home in the U.S. but hopefully all over the world. There’s nothing… there’s no greater prize for me.”
Pulisic recognises he has a platform. He is the most expensive American player of all time. He captained his country for the first time at 20 and was the first American to play in the Champions League final. A decade since he moved to Europe, he has only played for big clubs — Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea and now Milan. This is what, relatively speaking, makes him a veteran in football terms. Through the experience he has accumulated he hopes to emerge as a leader who is authentic to himself.
Publicly, he lacks the loquaciousness and affability of current national-team skipper Tyler Adams — “I’m not the most vocal person,” Pulisic concedes — but there are other ways to affect a group and a country.
To Pulisic, that means action as much as words and being an example “in just doing what I do every day”. It means “when I’m with the (national) team, when I’m at club level, I’m just continuing to show people, like, ‘OK, he’s pushing the boundaries. He’s performing to a high level.’ Hopefully, I can lead that way as well.”
The player who, in a meme, was framed as the LeBron James of soccer, is quite the introvert. He is the polar opposite, for instance, of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the transcendent Milan icon, who has returned to Milanello very quickly after his retirement as a player to take up a new role created by Milan’s owners RedBird Capital Partners as an operating partner for the group’s media and entertainment portfolio and as a senior adviser to Milan’s ownership and senior management. How then does Pulisic square his self-effacing character with the expectation his profile and ability generates?
“I’ve had my difficulties with it,” he accepts. “It’s not something that affects my day-to-day life. I think I’m quite a simple guy. I’m not out in public all the time, so it doesn’t affect me. I’m in training every day. I come home and I can relax and speak to the people close to me and the people that I love, so it’s not something that bothers me in any way. It’s just some getting used to and I’m really grateful I have the platform to do what I want to do.”
Our interview takes place by the exit of the clubhouse at Milanello, where a member of Milan’s backroom team sits at a desk waiting to catch the players as they leave training to sign jerseys for one of the club’s commercial partners. Pulisic’s shirt instantly became the best seller following his move from Chelsea for €20million (now $21.9m, £17.2m).
There was a 75 per cent increase in the number of Milan jerseys sold compared to a standard equivalent period. In the U.S. the sales uplift was 713 per cent, and Milan shirt sales in the U.S. increased from nine per cent of the total sold to 43 per cent. Personalised Pulisic jerseys represented 45 per cent of all match jerseys sold in his first month with them, according to the club.
Americans are flocking to San Siro, the iconic stadium Milan share with city rivals Inter, like never before. The number is up 148 per cent on this stage last season.
A commercial phenomenon, Pulisic is helping Milan, and Serie A, build their profiles in North America.
The club’s new fourth jersey, about to be launched in ivory and black, is inspired by the city of Milan’s most famous landmark, the gothic cathedral in Piazza del Duomo. Unsurprisingly, it is a collaboration with a U.S. brand, a streetwear label from Los Angeles — which was a stop on Milan’s 2023 pre-season tour. The club made sure to sign Pulisic in time to participate to make full use of his pull and draw fans to games against Real Madrid at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and Juventus at MLS side LA Galaxy’s Dignity Health Sports Park.
“I think that’s just a win-win. That’s an extra thing,” Pulisic says of his impact off the pitch. “That’s not what I focus on. I focus on the sporting aspect, performing and winning games.”
The old clubhouse at Milanello, arguably the most bucolic training facility in European football, was, in harder financial times, rented out as a wedding venue. Pulisic and his new team are still in the honeymoon stage. “I’m enjoying it a lot,” he smiles. “I’ve been given a great opportunity here.” That’s all he was looking for after Chelsea, where he became surplus to requirements: “A fair opportunity.”
Did he feel he was no longer getting one at the London club? “I’m not here to talk about whether it was fair or not back then. I’m just happy to be where I am now, for sure. The first couple of years (at Chelsea) were fantastic,” he reflects. Pulisic was a member of their Champions League-winning squad in May 2021. “The last couple of years… I think a lot of things in the club changed. A lot of people also left this summer, got new opportunities and have done well.”
Some of them are now at Milan, too. Pulisic followed Ruben Loftus-Cheek to San Siro and the pair of them have reconnected with former Chelsea team-mates Fikayo Tomori and Olivier Giroud, who had already made the move. “That made it a lot easier,” Pulisic says.
His debut goal against Bologna in August, a screamer from outside of the box, came from a neat one-two with striker Giroud. “I know a lot of his tendencies, he knows mine. It’s been great to play off him. Things like that are only going to help with the chemistry within the team and get me accustomed to a new team, a new league.”
The same goes for Yunus Musah, the USMNT midfielder, whom Milan signed from Spain’s Valencia in the same transfer window they acquired Pulisic.
Musah was born in New York City but raised in Castelfranco Veneto near Venice and speaks fluent Italian. “He’s an incredible kid,” Pulisic beams. “I love playing with him in the national team. It’s great now to see him day-to-day. If I don’t understand something, he’s there to help me out. He’s teaching me a bit of everything. Mostly the footballing stuff I need to know.”
GO DEEPER
Why Christian Pulisic’s dream move to Chelsea took a turn for the worse
Pulisic’s debut away to Bologna could not have gone better. In addition to scoring himself, he was instrumental to the other goal in a 2-0 Milan win, picking out Tijjani Reijnders at the far post to cut the ball back for a Giroud tap-in. A week later, in his first appearance at San Siro, he scored again. Milan won seven of their first eight games in the league.
Playing in a different position from the one he tends to occupy for the USMNT, Pulisic believes the experience of playing on the right rather than the left has made him a better player.
“I’ve learned a lot, especially playing off the right side. I’ve learned a lot about finding the right times to come inside. I’ve improved with my weaker foot as well and in finding the right solutions, the right times to run in behind, when to show to feet. I’ve really improved tactically about the game in that sense.
“From a defensive point of view as well, I think I’ve improved and I feel good about helping the team defensively whether it’s pressing or covering the right spaces. Some things I’ve definitely seen a change in in coming to Italy.”
It gives Gregg Berhalter, the USMNT coach and a frequent visitor to Italy this season, a more complete player ahead of the Copa America, where the hosts face group games against Bolivia, Panama and Uruguay.
Pulisic finished 2023 strongly. He is already in double figures for combined goals and assists and is set to have the most prolific campaign of his career.
Before Sunday’s 3-1 home win against Roma, Pulisic was presented with the Serie A Player of the Month award for December. A quiet confidence simmers within.
Milan are out of this season’s Champions League, finishing third in their group to drop down into the second-tier Europa League’s straight-knockout phase, and were eliminated from the Coppa Italia by Atalanta last week. They are third in Serie A, nine points behind first-placed rivals Inter who beat them four times in 2023, including in both legs of last season’s Champions League semi-final and, infamously, 5-1 in September in Pulisic’s first Derby della Madonnina in the league. But he does not accept Milan are out of the title race. That’s not in his mentality.
“There’s still half a season to go, so that doesn’t seem fair,” he bites back. “We’re still going to push on and do our best. We still have lots to play for. We’re still in the Europa League (they have a two-leg play-off next month against French club Rennes over a place in that competition’s last 16). There are many games left in the league this season, so we’re not at all discouraged by what’s going on. We’re going to continue to push and win games and hopefully make our fans proud.”
Injury-resistant at a club mired in an injury crisis and consistently decisive on the pitch, he has proved some of the Puli-sceptics wrong and hopes to take his form into the Copa America.
Pulisic was still a teenager when he played in the centenary edition of that tournament eight years ago. The U.S., playing then as they will this year as hosts and invited guests in what is the South American championship, made the semi-finals on that occasion before losing to Argentina. Can they do even better this time?
“There’s no measure to say exactly, ‘If we get this far, that’s success’,” Pulisic muses. “We’re going in with the mentality (of) taking it game by game and, of course, the goal is to win the tournament — always when you go into a tournament — so that’s how we look at things. We have a good young team and this is a great opportunity for us to play against the world’s best and hopefully show the world what we can do.”
To win it, the USMNT will have to get past reigning World Cup and Copa America champions Argentina and their captain Lionel Messi, whose impact since joining MLS club Inter Miami last summer has been electric.
“I can’t say it’s not expected,” Pulisic says. “He (Messi) is, of course, the best to really ever do it. After having the (2022) World Cup he did and then obviously being back in MLS, it’s been fantastic for the league. The buzz around the league, around Miami whenever they play… it seems like a big televised game. Players like that are going to bring in fans, new fans to watch the league, and for me it’s only a positive thing.”
Would it bring Pulisic back to the U.S. in the future? An old head on a 25-year-old’s body still feels he has much more to give Milan before then.
“Obviously, I’m not an old player,” he says. “I hopefully have some great years in Europe ahead of me. I’m loving my time here, so of course MLS is not in my head at the moment. But, yeah. At the end of my career? Absolutely.
“I will say, it’s come a long, long way from when I first started even… almost, what, 10 years (ago) when I moved to Europe. Where the game has come in the US from then, even MLS to where it is now, I’ve seen a massive change just as far as the support in the US; you know, getting behind the national team and even the clubs now seeing Messi in Miami, things like that.
“There’s just so much buzz around the sport and I think it’s only going to get better in the next few years.”
(Top photo: Alessandro Belussi and Pietro Vai)
The New York Times
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Follow live coverage of Ivory Coast vs Nigeria and Egypt vs Ghana at the Africa Cup of Nations
“The spirit of the 1993 team will always be there for Zambia.”
Kalusha Bwalya, Zambia’s former football captain, is reflecting on the day that changed his life forever.
On April 27, 1993, a military aircraft taking 18 of his team-mates and their coach to a World Cup qualifier against Senegal crashed shortly after refuelling in Gabon. All 30 people aboard died.
Bwalya would have been on the plane, too, but for the fact that he was playing for PSV Eindhoven at the time. Being based in the Netherlands meant he made his own way to the match from Europe and ultimately saved his life — although it did not spare him from crushing, numbing grief.
“You couldn’t imagine the whole team you play with are not there anymore,” Bwalya tells The Athletic. “It didn’t feel real.”
Zambian football could have been broken by the dreadful events of that day nearly 31 years ago. Instead, in the year that followed, a new national team — captained by Bwalya — came within one match of reaching the 1994 World Cup and also made the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final.
Against all the odds, an unfancied Zambia team went one better and won the 2012 AFCON final in Libreville — the city in Gabon where the doomed flight carrying the 1993 team had crashed minutes after taking off. A tragic story had come full circle.
Now, as the team known as The Copper Bullets prepare for their first game at an AFCON since 2015 tomorrow (Wednesday), this is the story of that plane crash and the team’s enduring legacy in their homeland and beyond.
It has been slightly forgotten now, amid the trauma of how their story ended, but that 1993 Zambia squad was widely hailed as one of the best the country had ever produced.
They harboured genuine hopes of reaching the World Cup finals for the first time and also lifting the AFCON trophy. Just two days before the plane crash, the team had travelled to Mauritius for an AFCON qualifier, thrashing their hosts 3-0 with Kelvin Mutale, a talented young striker, scoring a hat-trick.
Bwalya missed that match but planned to link up with the squad for their next game, an important World Cup qualifier against Senegal in Dakar, that county’s capital city.
That meeting never happened.
The squad had boarded a De Havilland Canada DHC-5D Buffalo twin-engined military aircraft, and the plan was for them to travel to Senegal, in west Africa, via stop-offs in Congo, Gabon and Ivory Coast.
After its second stop to refuel in Libreville, Gabon’s capital, it took off from Leon-Mba International Airport. Two minutes later, it crashed just 2km (a little over a mile) from the coast, killing all five crew and the 25 passengers. According to the accident report, which was finally released in 2003, the right engine caught fire but the pilot shut down the still-functioning left engine, meaning the plane plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.
Gabon scrambled soldiers to lead the search for bodies but only 24 of the 30 were recovered, and just 13 positively identified — a grim task handed to Patrick Kangwa, vice-chairman of the Zambian Football Association’s technical committee.
Following the tragedy, Zambia’s President Frederick Chiluba, who was on a state visit to Uganda when he learnt the news, announced a week-long period of national mourning and a state funeral for the players, who were all later buried in ‘Heroes Acre’ close to the Independence Stadium, in capital city Lusaka. It was not until May 2002, after a lengthy court battle, that families were awarded compensation of $4million (£3.1m).
Bwalya was one of four Zambia players with clubs in Europe — along with Charles Musonda, Johnson Bwalya (no relation) and Bennett Mulwanda Simfukwe — who were making their own way to the match in Senegal. He was on a morning jog at PSV’s training ground in Eindhoven when he received a call from the Zambia FA treasurer.
“He told me, ‘You have to delay your flight tomorrow’. I said ‘Why?’. He said, ‘Because there’s been an accident’. He said he thought there were some casualties.”
Bwalya then recalled turning on the news and watching a BBC report saying his Senegal-bound team-mates had all died in a plane crash and that there were no survivors. “In that moment, you don’t think that much,” he said. “You just think it should be a mistake. There was a lot of denial on the first day.”
He spent the rest of that day on the phone frantically trying to piece together what exactly had happened while worried family and friends called to find out if he was on the flight.
Back at PSV’s training ground the following day, he remembered his club colleagues trying to protect him by hiding the newspapers, with stories of the crash.
The next day, a Friday, Bwalya flew to Zambia via the UK. He said: “When we were taking off from London, the pilot said I should go to the front of the plane in the cockpit, so I could see the take-off and landing because he thought I would be very nervous to fly. I was in the cockpit in London when we took off.
“When I got to Zambia, every time people saw you, they would cry. On Saturday, the plane that had gone to Gabon to collect all the bodies returned — the 30 people who died. When that plane came and landed, that was the first time it hit me and I realised I would never see the boys again.”
Musonda was also playing in Europe, for Anderlecht in Belgium’s capital Brussels. He was desperate to play in that World Cup qualifier against Senegal but had a longstanding right knee injury and was told he couldn’t join up with the national team by the club’s owner.
His son, Charles Jnr, who starred for Chelsea’s youth team before a knee injury ruled him out of the game for three years, said: “My dad was furious (he wasn’t allowed play in the game). Two days later, the plane crashed. If he was on the plane, I wouldn’t be here.”
Some players had even more fortunate escapes.
Martin Mwamba, the third-choice goalkeeper, had been in the squad for the game against Mauritius only to be dropped for the trip to Senegal. He had eaten breakfast with the Zambia squad before they began the long journey north west. It was his sobbing wife who broke the news.
“I switched on the radio and it was everywhere,” he said. “I was very shocked.” His family had assumed he had died and opened their home to mourners.
“It was very hard for me to recover from that tragedy. It took me two months to start recovering.”
Others were not so lucky. David ‘Efford’ Chabala, the first-choice goalkeeper, was one of the 30 who perished, leaving behind four children and a wife, Joyce, who was pregnant with twins.
One of his sons, Freeman — who was seven when his father was killed, and subsequently became a professional footballer — told FIFA.com: “I didn’t understand what it was. And anybody that I asked what it meant… I was only told, ‘Your dad is not coming back’. And I kept on wondering why Dad would decide not to come back. It was something I had to wrestle with for a very long time.”
Zambia mourned not just the tragic loss of those young lives taken far too soon, but also of gifted footballers who seemed on the verge of creating history.
The country had occasionally threatened its more powerful regional rivals at the Africa Cup of Nations, getting to the final in 1974 — when they lost to Zaire after a replay — but had never won the tournament or qualified for a World Cup.
This group, however, were seen as special, a blend of exciting young talents such as Mutale, a Manchester United fan who had brought his international tally to 14 goals in 13 games with that hat-trick against Mauritius, and older players who had big tournament experience, having competed together at the 1988 Olympic Games in South Korea.
They were led by their new coach, Godfrey Chitalu, who was widely recognised as one of the country’s greatest-ever players. Chitalu, who had only replaced Samuel ‘Zoom’ Ndhlovu five months earlier, also died in the crash.
“The team was built on strong foundations,” Bwalya said. “David Chabala was a fantastic goalkeeper, one of the best that has ever come out of Zambia and very influential. Wisdom Chansa was a very good friend, another very important player, who played in the No 8 position. We won one of the first tournaments in Zambia with the under-20 team.
“Derby Makinka was a midfielder of the highest calibre: he could defend and shoot with his left and right foot. Eston Mulenga was a very solid centre-half. We had young players that came in, like Patrick Banda and Mutale, who were lethal up front. They didn’t play many games but were brilliant talents.”
A chilling part of the story is that, before the crash, Zambia’s players had frequently raised concerns about the unreliable green-camouflaged Buffalo military planes.
“There was always a problem,” Bwalya said. “The boys would say ‘This plane will kill us’. The association didn’t have a lot of money to fly the team on a commercial flight, so the easiest way was to try and get a plane from the air force.”
For a previous match, a World Cup qualifier they lost 2-0 away to Madagascar in December 1992, they had stopped for refuelling in Malawi. After hours stuck on the runway because of a pay dispute, their plane took off again.
On the four-hour journey over the Indian Ocean from the African mainland, the pilot insisted the players wear life jackets.
If the shattering events of April 1993 seem remarkable three decades on, what happened next truly defied belief: a new Zambia team rallied.
“When I came to Zambia for the funeral and I saw all the bodies, I didn’t think that Zambia would be able to compete at a decent level, because you just feel you can’t lose a generation of players and then start over,” Bwalya said. “But it was credit to the coaches, Roald Poulsen and Ian Porterfield, and everyone else involved. It was incredible when you think about it that the team could start from nowhere.”
To start with, the players met for a six-week training camp in Denmark under Poulsen, a 44-year-old whose main claim to fame had been winning the Danish title with Odense five years before and whose services had been offered to Zambia by the country’s football association.
Zambia played games against teams at different levels of the Danish league system before a World Cup qualifier against Morocco for a place at the 1994 World Cup finals in the United States.
“Approximately three weeks after the disaster, I got calls from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Football Association,” Poulsen said, “to ask if I could help over a period of six weeks in Denmark. I could see this was going to be a big job.”
Bwalya was persuaded to join up with the new squad in Denmark by President Chiluba.
“The president called me and said, ‘Skipper, we have to go on, otherwise the death of our heroes will be in vain. We can’t allow our country to go down like this. You have to be there so you can inspire the guys. If people see you, they will feel inspired to continue’. So I said, ‘OK, I will do my best’.”
Just 67 days after the plane disaster, on July 4, this new Zambia team came from behind to beat Morocco 2-1 in Lusaka, with Bwalya scoring a free kick. Poulsen said afterwards it had been “It was most emotional game I ever experienced.”
However, after a draw and a win in back-to-back matches with Senegal, they missed out on USA ’94 following a 1-0 loss in their final qualifying game, the return fixture away against Morocco in the October.
But, again, this team were not finished: the next year, Zambia reached the AFCON final in Tunisia under Porterfield, a Scottish former manager of clubs including Chelsea, Sheffield United and Aberdeen.
They scored that final’s opening goal but lost 2-1 to a Nigeria side including the likes of Jay-Jay Okocha, Sunday Oliseh and Finidi George. Porterfield, who died of cancer in 2007, was subsequently awarded the freedom of Zambia.
Bwalya said: “When you look behind you (at the rest of your team) and you only see new faces, not the ones you have been seeing behind you for 10 years, it’s a difficult feeling. It hits you. But you have to give credit to the guys who stepped into the shoes of the fallen heroes.”
Against the odds, Zambia went one better and were crowned African champions in 2012, under Frenchman Herve Renard.
Fittingly, that final against Ivory Coast was held in Libreville to complete a story, with the squad laying flowers on Sabliere Beach, close to the site of the crash, in memory of those who had died there 19 years before.
In a previous interview with The Athletic, Renard said: “It was maybe the best Zambia team ever that died in that crash in 1993. We wanted to do it for the players Zambia lost, but also for Kalusha Bwalya and for all the Zambian people. It was an obligation to play for the memory of the people.
“Emotionally, it was something very important for us. The spirit of those players was something I don’t think I will find anywhere else. I remember when I went back to Zambia later, people said to me, ‘You put us on the map’. They are so proud of that 2012 team. It was something very special. That’s the right word: special.”
Bwalya, who was by then president of the Zambia FA, recalled: “It was a sunny day but the clouds turned dark and there was lightning, so everybody was moved by the whole ceremony.
“It felt like there was an encounter between the old team and the new. You could just feel in the air that Zambia was a different team between visiting Sabliere Beach and going back to the hotel. The old team was with the team in presence when we played (the final) against Ivory Coast. The rest is history.”
There was certainly an air of destiny about the manner of Zambia’s triumph in the final. Chelsea striker Didier Drogba missed a penalty in the second half with the score still 0-0, before the game went to penalties.
After a combined 18 spot kicks, and with a nation’s nerves at breaking point, Zambia prevailed to claim their first AFCON title — one not even their opponents could begrudge.
“In Africa, we are big believers in stuff like this in religion and culture and, for us, it was written in the stars for them,” said Sol Bamba, a member of the Ivorian squad that day who has played in the UK for Leeds United, Cardiff City and others. “After the disappointment and the sadness between ourselves, we talked about it and said, ‘Maybe it’s not a bad thing Zambia won it in the end’.”
It is now over to the 2024 team, who count Leicester City’s Patson Daka as their star player, to write their own script.
They begin their group schedule against DR Congo tomorrow (Wednesday) and while expectations are hardly high, the events of 1993 ensure any Zambia team that takes to the field in a major tournament will not lack motivation.
“We were an exciting team and it was just the beginning,” Musonda Snr said. “The legacy of that team will forever be remembered. I hope the new squad can challenge and bring honours to Zambia again.”
(Top photos: Simon Bruty/Allsport, Neal Simpson/EMPICS, both via Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
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