Stephane Mbia; The Unknown Hero Of African Football

Many years ago, it was a scot from Paisley, Scotland, Archie McLean, who introduced the Samba style of football to Brazil, but his name is hardly known by many a football fan because of lack of publicity on such an iconic figure of international magnitude.

One of the most outstanding African footballers who have placed the continent on the highest level of World football is undoubtedly Cameroon’s Stephane Mbia.

Born Stephane Etoundi Mbia in 1986, in the Capital of Cameroon, Yaoundé, the midfield warrior-chieftain of special strength began his professional football career in France when he signed for Olympique Lyon in 2002.

However, Mbia became a household name in France when he completed a 10.4 million move to Marseille (Making him the most expensive African youngster in the French Ligue 1) in 2007.

Mbia is a defensive midfielder but his versatility cannot be over emphasized. He can play as an attacking midfielder, central defender as well as a right fullback. At Marseille, he formed a formidable defensive pair with Souleymane Diawara in Didier Dechamps’ team.

The very unique scrapper who is also good at the tippy-tappy game was such a stalwart for the Indomitable Lions at the CAN 2008 which was held in Ghana. He scored a brace in their match against Tunisia which Cameroon won by 3-2.

He stared in the final match against Egypt but unfortunately for him the Indomitable Lions succumbed to a 0-1 defeat to the Pharaohs at the Accra Sports Stadium to lift a record 5^th Nations Cup trophy.

On August 26, 2013, Mbia signed for English Premiership side, Queens Park Rangers (QPR) under Harry Rednapp but the midfielder was loaned to Sevilla after QPR was relegated.

Before joining the Andalucía side, coach Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan’s team had finished 13^th from the previous season and the departure of French midfield prodigy Jeffrey Kondogbia to Monaco had left their supporters in the state of thinking but the Cameroonian formed a perfect midfield partnership with Ivan Rakitic.

According to squawka.com, a football statistics web portal, Sevilla won more matches with Mbia playing. That is, Sevilla won 34 points with him playing (19) games and won 29 points without him playing.

It was his last minute screamer at the Mestalla Stadium that sent Sevilla through to the Europa League finals over Valencia.

In the final match of the 2013/2014 Europa League against Benfica in Turin, Italy, Mbia scored his penalty kick in the shootout.

At the end of the season, Mbia extended his deal with the Los Rojiblancos and helped them to win the Europa League for the second time in a row beaten Dnipro in the finals.

He was selected into the 18-man Europa League “Team of the Year” for his outstanding performance.

Though Mbia spent just two seasons with Sevilla, he’s such a humungous figure in Spain due to his out of the box performance for the Andalucía side.

Stephane Mbia is the kind of player that most coaches would love to work with because of his versatility.

His performance off the ball caught the eyes of Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, who wanted him to succeed Nemanja Matic at the Stamford Bridge but his transfer to the Blues could not go through.

Currently, Stephan Mbia, captain of the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon plays in the Turkish League for Trabzonspor. He was nominated for the last edition of the Glo African Best Player Award and has also made the 37-man list for 2015.

Seriously, I think the time has come to lift the lid on Stephane Etoundi Mbia to put him in his rightful place.

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