The almighty Mazembe are enjoying an excellent 2023-2024 season, reaching the semi-finals of the CAF Champions League. Coach Lamine Ndiaye and, of course, the players, including Glody Likonza, the Crows' metronome, are among the key figures in this success.
The almighty Mazembe are enjoying something of a renaissance on the continental stage. The Congolese club have returned to the last four of the CAF Champions League, 5 years after their last appearance at this stage of the competition. The Corbeaux also managed to do what no other African club has done this season, beating Petro Atlético 2-1 in Luanda in the quarter-final second leg. This Mazembe team has a coherent line-up, with a number of stand-out players, such as Glofy Likonza, a player who seems, at last, to have reached maturity.
Discovered in Kinshasa with Tout Puissant Les Anges, then brought to Lubumbashi to train with the Katumbi soccer academy, Glody Likonza joined the TP Mazembe squad in 2017.Packed with talent, the midfielder, then aged just 19, was seen as the future treasure Mputu, a club legend. And four years after his arrival at Mazembe, Glody Likonza was loaned out to Belgian club Standard de Liège in the summer of 2021, for a year with an option to buy, which was to lead to a 4-year contract with Les Rouches. But the young midfielder, who was recovering from an anterior ligament injury in his left knee, was unable to spend a single training session with the first team.Reversed to the U-21s, he then saw his loan ended prematurely by the Standard in January 2022.
On his return to Lubumbashi, Glody Likonza went back to work and was elevated to the position of team vice-captain. He has taken on a great deal of responsibility both in the dressing room and on the pitch, where he is the great organizer of Tout Puissant Mazembe's play and also unblocks situations for his club in tight matches. This was again demonstrated in this edition of the CAF Champions League, notably against Mamelodi Sundows on the second day of the group phase, when he scored Mazembe's winning goal (1-0), and against Pyramids FC on the fifth day, when he scored and provided the decisive assist in the match won by Les Corbeaux (2-0). He is currently Mazembe's second top scorer in the Champions League with 3 goals, behind Cheick Oumar Fofana who has 4.For sports analyst Richard Mukendi, Glody Likonza can still do better. "He's a talented player; I think he's starting to realize that he has to take responsibility for this team. But he can still do better than he's doing now," he declared.
In the semi-finals of the Champions League, Tout Puissant Mazembe face the continent's most successful club and defending Champions League champions, Al Ahly of Cairo.It promises to be a complicated double-header for the Crows.But the Badiangwena will once again be expected to perform well if they are to reach the final again, 9 years on.One of the keys to qualification will be good reading of the game, something Glody Likonza says he learned at the academy."What I like to do on the pitch is to play first and foremost for my team-mates.But when I score, I'm happy too, even though that's not my primary goal.At the Academy, we were taught to feel the game, and that's what me and my team-mates do. Being a captain isn't just about scoring goals, it's about being exemplary and taking responsibility both on and off the pitch," he says.
At 26, Glody Likonza remains one of Tout puissant Mazembe's key attacking assets in their quest for the CAF Champions League double.
