THE FIRST PSL PLAYER AT THE NATIONS CUP

The first representation of South African club football at an Africa Cup of Nations finals came in Tunisia in 1994 ... just two years after South Africa had its Apartheid-enforced isolation ended.

Bafana Bafana did not qualify, finishing behind Zambia and

Zimbabwe in their first ever title at qualifying, where some stark lessons were learnt. Zambia qualified one point ahead of Zimbabwe, having had to rebuild their team after the tragic loss of almost their entire squad in the April 28, 1993 air crash in Gabon.

Zambian players had been trickling into South Africa in the preceding years and three of those were killed in the disaster – Wisdom Chansa, Samuel Chomba and Robert Watiyakeni all played for Johannesburg club Dynamos. It was expected the likes of

Shadrack Biemba, Albert Bwalya, Chris Mwakupuki and Ackson Simbala, who were all at South African clubs, might make the squad for Zambia in the 1994 final but in the end, only Chatsworth Rangers’ Evans Sakala was included – making him the first player from a South African club to compete at the finals. Sakala proved one of the revelations of the tournament in Tunisia, where Zambia made it all the way to the final but lost to Nigeria.