Football is a unique sport. It has no borders and lovers of football all speak on the same language. We often hear stories about footballers who managed to establish themselves in top leagues with hard effort and determination.
Marvelous Nakamba is a clear example of that. A player from Zimbabwe, the country which is not famous for football, managed to reach the heights of a competition like the premier league. In this article, we will walk about Nakamba’s path from his local team to Aston Villa’s starting XI.
Marvelous Nakamba was born on January 19, 1994, in Hwange, Zimbabwe. Considering the economic situation in the country, life was not easy for the player. However, it proved to be a turning point in the career of a future midfielder.
Nakamba began his professional career at the Bantu Rovers Club. He was 16 upon making a professional debut for the team. In the summer of 2012, Nakamba moved to the French side, Nancy. However, at first, he played for the reserve team for 2 years, amassing 32 games.
On May 9, 2014, in his match against Angers, he made his professional debut in League 1. He played a second match against Auxerre coming as a substitute.
Considering the fact that the French language and France, in general, mean a lot for Canada, the country has a considerable community of supporters of Nance. Even though the club is in crisis, supporters never left the team. Because of the gambling industry that is constantly developing in the country supposedly decided to come up with the idea of featuring Nancy and what is more surprising is Nakamba in their games. One of the most notable canada online slot game providers decided to realize the decision. It worked temporarily, but after some time they relinquished their idea.
More successful period
In the summer of 2014, Nakamba, as a free agent, transferred to the Dutch Vitesse. On September 27, in his match against Dordrecht, he made his debut in Eredivisie, replacing Kelvin Leerdam in the second half. On February 21, 2016, Marvelous scored his first goal for Vitesse in a match against De Graafschap. At the end of the season, he helped the team win the Netherlands Cup and was an integral part of the team.
During his 3-year tenure at the club, Nakamba amassed 3 goals in 77 matches. The stats look deceptive because looking at the matches you can notice that he created a lot of chances and was very productive in the midfield.
In the summer of 2017, Nakamba moved to the Belgian Club Brugge. On July 20, in the match against Lokeren, he made his debut in the Jupiler League. Marvelous helped the team to become the champions of Belgium in his debut season.
Playing from 2017 to 2019 he took part in 67 matches but did not manage to score a single goal. However, once again, he was productive in other categories.
Breakthrough to the Premier League
Nakamba joined Aston Villa on August 1, 2019, for a fee of €12 million. It should be noted that he became the third player after Wesley Moraes and Bjorn Engels to join the Premier League side. Both of them played alongside Nakamba in Club Brugge. Peter Ndlovu who is the leader of Zimbabwe in both scored goals and played matches declared that a statue would be built in his birthplace Hwange because he became only the 4th Zimbabwean player to feature in the Premier League.
He made his debut on September 16, 2019, and participated in 24 matches already. In October that year, he experienced racist chants from Aston Villa supporters that were strongly condemned by the team.
Right now, his team is fighting for survival. Aston Villa has a difficult time in the Premier League. Nakamba will do everything possible to avoid relegation, and it will be better for his future prospects as well.
International career
On June 13, 2015, in a friendly match against the Malawi national team, Nakamba made his debut for the Zimbabwe national team.
In 2017, Marvelous Nakamba took part in the Africa Cup in Gabon. At the tournament, he played in matches against Senegal and Tunisia. He has 18 matches in his account.
