Yoane Wissa was the level of quality needed for success.
That is the opinion of Gaby Zakuani.
Zakuani is now 39 and a former DR Congo captain. He was given the job some years ago of persuading players to commit to DR Congo, rather than higher-ranked nations they also qualified for.
Yoane Wissa is one of those players.
The Newcastle United star was born in France but qualified for DR Congo through his family.
Yoane Wissa has now scored three of their four goals as DR Congo have progressed to the World Cup knockout stages for a first time.
They play England on Wednesday for a place in the last 16.
Gaby Zakuani talking to the Peterborough Telegraph about DR Congo, their recruitment and especially Yoane Wissa: “I fancy we can take England to extra time and then possibly nick it. We have seen England struggle with a defence that sits deep like Ghana. We can do that and we then have forwards who can exploit England’s defensive weaknesses. Yoane Wissa has been in great form and he’s the sort of player we set out to recruit because we knew we had to find players with that bit more quality to take us to the next level. My job has been to find players who might be thinking about playing for France, Belgium and England and persuading them to play for us instead.”
Zakuani adding: “We came to this World Cup determined to enjoy ourselves and to make our country proud of us and we’ve achieved that. We’ve shown we can compete at the level and that will give us so much confidence moving forward. The reaction back home has been outstanding and the fact we are playing England next has really captured the imagination. Everyone at home watches the Premier League so for us to play against those stars is huge.”
Interesting to compare Yoane Wissa and Jean Philippe-Mateta.
They are both aged 29 now, they were both born in France but also qualified for DR Congo through their family background.
The two strikers were also at Chateauroux together when beginning their professional careers.
Yoane Wissa committed to DR Congo a number of years ago and has played more than 40 times for his country and is a first choice player for them. Indeed, their star player.
Mateta decided not to commit to DR Congo and hadn’t been involved at all internationally until eight months ago at the age of 28 he got a call up for France late in his career. He is now a bit part player for France and has gone to the World Cup with them, he got a few minutes at the end of their 4-1 win over Norway.
For those of you who might scoff at the idea of Yoane Wissa playing for France. The fact is that over the course of four years he was excellent at Brentford in a number of attacking positions, scoring a lot goals and getting assists. So if he hadn’t already committed to DR Congo, no reason not to think somebody like Wissa who was performing so well in the Premier League couldn’t have become a squad player for France potentially at some point, the same as Mateta.
Anyway, good on him for committing to DR Congo at a young age and now getting his reward at this 2026 World Cup, having played so many times for his country.