Joel Kangala Bwalya (born 24 October 1972) is a Zambian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

coach and former player who has been the manager of Kafue Celtic since August 2021.

Early and personal life

Bwalya grew up in

Mufulira Mufulira, is a town in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. Mufulira means "Place of Abundance and Peace". The town developed around the Mufulira Copper Mine in the 1930s. The town also serves as the administrative capital of Mufulira District. ...

with two older brothers who were both also footballers,

Benjamin Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...

and Kalusha. He left school in the 10th grade to focus on a football career.

Club career

Bwalya played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. He began his career with Mufulira Police in 1985, moving to

Mufulira Wanderers Mufulira Wanderers are Zambia's most successful football club, based in the Copperbelt town of Mufulira and currently playing in the Zambia National Division One after their 2019/2020 season relegation. Popularly known as Mighty Mufulira Wan ...

in 1986, and becoming a first-team member in 1987. In 1988 he won the Independence Cup with Mufulira Wanderers. He later played in Belgium for

Cercle Brugge Cercle Brugge Koninklijke Sportvereniging () is a Belgian professional football club based in Bruges. Cercle have played in the Belgian Pro League since the 2003–04 season, having previously spent several years in the Belgian Second Divisio ...

, KRC Harelbeke and

Zultse VV Sportvereniging Zulte Waregem (), commonly known as Zulte Waregem or by their nickname Essevee (), is a Belgian professional football club based in Waregem, West Flanders. Zulte Waregem plays in the Belgian First Division A. Their highest finis ...

. When he moved to Belgium in 1991 with Cercle Brugge, rejecting the chance to sign for Swiss club

Grasshoppers Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grasshop ...

, he did so because his older brother Kalusha had previously played for the club. In 1994 he was loaned to KRC Harelbeke for two years. Whilst with Harelbeke, Bwalya was voted the best foreign player in Division One. Harelbeke wanted to make the loan permanent, but Bwalya returned to Cercle Brugge. He finished his career back in Zambia with

ZESCO United ZESCO United Football Club (simply often known as ZESCO) is a Zambian professional football club based in Ndola in Zambia, that competes in the Zambia Super League, Founded in 1974. The team plays its home matches at the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium. ...

International career

In 1988 he was a member of the Zambia under-16 team playing qualifying matches for the

1989 FIFA U-16 World Championship The 1989 FIFA U-16 World Championship, the third edition of the tournament, was held in the Scottish cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Motherwell, Aberdeen, and Dundee between 10 June and 24 June 1989. Players born after 1 August 1972 could participa ...

. He was also a squad member for the under-20 team at the

1991 African Youth Championship The 1991 African Youth Championship was a football tournament for under-20 players. It was held in Egypt from 22 February until 8 March 1991. The two best teams qualified for the 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship. Qualifying First round The firs ...

. He also played for the senior team between 1990 and 1997, making his international debut at the age of 18. He was a squad member at the

African Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations referred to as AFCON (french: Coupe d'Afrique des Nations, sometimes referred to as CAN, or TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons), and sometimes as African Cup of Nations, is the main internati ...

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

, and

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

Coaching career

He coached at Luanshya Hotspurs and Luanshya United. In 2017 he was an assistant coach at

Red Arrows The Red Arrows, officially known as the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, is the aerobatics display team of the Royal Air Force based at RAF Waddington. The team was formed in late 1964 as an all-RAF team, replacing a number of unofficial teams ...

, before becoming manager of

Ndola United Ndola is the third largest city in Zambia and third in terms of size and population, with a population of 475,194 (''2010 census provisional''), after the capital, Lusaka, and Kitwe, and the second largest in terms of infrastructure development aft ...

. He left Ndola United in January 2020 to become an assistant coach at Zanaco. In August 2021, Bwalya was named manager of newly-promoted top tier side Kafue Celtic.Joel Bwalya and Nchimunya Mweetwa appointed head coach and physical trainer at Kafue Celtic
- Zambian Football

References

External links

* 1972 births Living people Men's association football midfielders Zambian men's footballers Zambia men's youth international footballers Zambia men's under-20 international footballers Zambia men's international footballers 1990 African Cup of Nations players 1994 African Cup of Nations players 1996 African Cup of Nations players Mufulira Wanderers F.C. players Cercle Brugge K.S.V. players K.R.C. Zuid-West-Vlaanderen players S.V. Zulte Waregem players ZESCO United F.C. players Belgian Pro League players Zambian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Belgium Zambian expatriate sportspeople in Belgium Zambian football managers {{Zambia-footy-bio-stub