Former Zambia head coach Milutin Sredojević believes Enock Mwepu had the potential to reach the levels of Yaya Toure but after his retirement urged him to use his knowledge and experience of reaching the highest level to help football in his home country.
Mwepu, 24, confirmed his retirement from professional football after being diagnosed with an hereditary heart disease just a year after joining Premier League side Brighton and Hove Albion in a €23-million transfer from Red Bull Salzburg.
The technically gifted midfielder became a mainstay in the Seagulls midfield and made the world stand up and take notice with his first goal in the English top-flight with a stunning effort at Anfield against Liverpool which was reminiscent of one of Toure’s finest strikes in his Premier League career.
And ‘Micho’, who worked with him during his stint with the Chipolopolo admits that the news is hard to swallow, given that his career was just taking off for club and country.
“It feels like a nightmare, it’s so bad that at one moment I think I can wake up and get to know this is impossible to be true,” he told iDiski Times.
“In that period [that I worked with] him I want to express gratitude and appreciation, I enjoyed each and every moment. An amazing professional and top gentleman and a pure leader of the team, it wasn’t an accident he was the captain of the team.
“He was a top-class player that gives you an entire coverage of the field, he was simply unbelievable. You know his nickname is Computer and I was always telling him to go there on the field and who them you are an original pure Zambian computer.
“And he did that at club level with Red Bull [Salzburg], Brighton and Hove Albion, the national team simply, all of us that know him are devasted and we can’t believe it’s possible to happen, but life is sometimes very cruel, it’s a cruel situation of someone who we love and appreciate, Enock.”
Mwepu captained his national team in their last five games as he become a reference point for success alongside his former Salzburg teammate Patson Daka, who’s now on the books of Leicester City.
“He was a born leader, extremely intelligent, he’s still around and still has something to offer, we should not speak like he’s not still around but he needs to park the computer in the garage,” Micho continued.
“And we shall live with the wonderful memories he has assisted two goals against Zimbabwe, the goals against Botswana for me, he has always been there to be a touch of difference, a moment of brilliance, extreme quality and human that I will always keep close to my heart as a special, special midfielder.”
‘Micho’ went on to state that from what he’d seen working with Mwepu, he was the Zambian version of Toure and that his early success, winning the U20 AFCON and leading his national team to the last eight of the U20 FIFA World Cup showed and shows he has plenty of knowledge to offer for the present and the future footballers of his nation.
“It will be a huge loss to Zambian football and generally African football because if there was any player who could reach the level of quality Yaya Toure had because he was the Zambian version of Yaya, it was Enock,” the Serbian mentor said.
“My message to him is to put the computer off regarding playing but have in mind everything of your football career as a young boy, as a winner of AFCON U20, as a quarter-finalist at the U20 FIFA World Cup, as a senior national team player, as a UEFA Champions League player, as a Premier League player.
“You have gone through things that are an enormous asset and value to African and Zambian football and in order to reduce the pain of stopping playing, you need to be immediately involved in Zambian football as an important asset that could help so much with the national team and everything in Zambian football is done in a professional way.
“I think he could give an enormous contribution without playing but in a different role that could benefit, Zambian, African and world football, he is parking the computer but he will forever remain in the hearts and souls of all of us. He has so much to offer as a person out of the football field.”
Mwepu ends his career with 24 national team caps and six goals in his defensive midfield role since making his senior international debut under Wedson Nyirenda as a teenager in 2017, meanwhile his younger brother Franciso is currently on the books of Spanish side Cadiz.
