Blaise Lelo Mbele (born 10 August 1987) is a Congolese former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a striker. Lelo played for different professional clubs such as South African club

Orlando Pirates Orlando Pirates Football Club (often known as "The Buccaneers") is a South African professional football club based in the Houghton suburb of the city of Johannesburg and plays in the top-tier system of Football in South Africa known as DStv ...

and Saudi Arabian club

Al-Hilal FC Al Hilal Saudi Football Club ( ar, نادي الهلال السعودي), simply known as Al Hilal, is a professional multi-sports club based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Their football team competes in the Saudi Professional League. They are the mo ...

Club career

Mbele helped CS Sfaxien win the CAF Confederation Cup. On 29 November 2007, Mbele signed with Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia for a fee of $25000 per month to the player and $1.2M to his former club. He made his Saudi Premier League debut for Al Hilal in a 1–0 away win over Al Watani on 5 December 2007. His first goal for Al Hilal came in a 2–0 victory against Al Ittifaq on 10 December 2007. In 2008, he joined Tunisian side Espérance. In January 2009, Mbele signed with Sudanese club Al-Hilal for $1 million deal on a three-year contract. The player's agent cited the financial strength and success of the Al-Hilal to be the favoring deciding factors that made Mbele choose the Sudanese club. He did not have a good season with Al Hilal so Al Nasr of Libya choose to buy him. On 12 July 2011, Mbele signed with Kuwaiti club Al Naser. On 28 July 2011, Al Naser terminated their contract with Mbele after he ruptured a muscle. After being a free agent for four months, he eventually joined the Malaysian club,

Selangor FA Selangor Football Club (Malay: ''Kelab Bola Sepak Selangor''), commonly referred to as Selangor F.C. is a Malaysian professional football club based in the city of Shah Alam, Selangor, that currently competes in the Malaysia Super League, the ...

in a two-year contract alongside Lebanese international,

Ramez Dayoub Ramez Jamal Dayoub ( ar, رامز جمال ديوب; born 9 August 1984) is a Lebanese former professional footballer who played as a defender. A former Lebanon national team player, Dayoub played in Lebanon, Myanmar, Bahrain, and Malaysia, be ...

. However, due to his injury, Lelo did not manage to play for any games with Selangor and later was released by the

Football Association of Selangor The Football Association of Selangor, also known as FAS ( ms, Persatuan Bola Sepak Selangor) is the governing body of football for the state of Selangor, Malaysia. They are responsible for growing the standards of grassroots football in the state ...

. On 13 August 2012, Mbele signed for Algerian club

MC Alger Mouloudia Club d'Alger ( ar, نادي مولودية الجزائر), referred to as MC Alger or MCA for short, is an Algerian football club based in Algiers. The club was founded in 1921 and its colours are red, green and white. Their home sta ...

for a two-year contract. Bahrain became his fifteenth footballing country when he joined Al-Ahli Club. In 2017, Mbele moved to India after signing with newly formed

I-League The I-League (known as Hero I-League for sponsorship ties with Hero MotoCorp) is the second-tier men's professional football competition of the Indian football league system. It is currently contested by 12 clubs across the country with the w ...

club Gokulam Kerala.

International career

Mbele was a member of the DR Congo national team at the

2006 African Nations Cup The 2006 Africa Cup of Nations was the 25th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the association football championship of Africa. It was hosted by Egypt. Just like in 2004, the field of sixteen teams was split into four groups of four. Egypt won ...

, which progressed to the quarter-finals, where it were eliminated by

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

, which won the tournament.

References