Recently, legionnaires - players from other countries - have been looking more and more often into the Russian football championship. However, this practice did not begin at all now - and previously, foreign players played in Russian clubs. One of the most striking examples of the beginning of the 2000s is the South African defender Lekheto. Jacob Lekheto played for the Moscow Lokomotiv for a long time and was remembered by fans for a long time. If you are not familiar with him, then this article will tell you some details of his biography. Lekheto Jacob is far from a world-class star, but for the teams for which he played, he brought enough benefit.
Carier start
Lekheto Jacob was born March 24, 1974 in the city of Soweto, in the Republic of South Africa. Unlike most European football players who, before the start of their professional careers, that is, before reaching adulthood, manage to change several clubs, Jacob did not particularly choose in childhood. He was in the academy of the African club Moroka Swellows and played for the youth teams of this club. Unfortunately, he did not immediately get a place in the main team - for some time even after receiving a professional contract in 1992, Lekheto played for the reserve team of his club. Only in 1996, at the age of 22, he was transferred to the base, where the star of Lekheto began to unfold. Jacob played both defender and midfielder, but best of all he was given a game on the left in defense.
Performances for the native club
Jacob Lekheto completely worked out his five-year contract with Moroka, having played in almost one hundred and fifty matches. Naturally, the club tried to extend the agreement with the player, however, at the beginning of 2001, he began to receive calls from abroad, the most attractive of which was the offer of the Moscow Lokomotiv. Naturally, Lekheto agreed to a salary increase, and playing for a strong club of a rather serious European league was also pleasant. Therefore, Loko has a new legionnaire - twenty-six-year-old Jacob Lekheto. The biography of the player on this, of course, did not end - everything was just beginning.
Lekheto and Russia
So, in 2001, the adventure of a South African in Russia began. Considering his age and experience, Lekheto was not taken at all like a pig in a poke - they were confident in his abilities, and he immediately began to demonstrate his power. Jacob immediately gained the confidence of a coach and became a base player. He coped with the task, and for four years he regularly played the role of left-back. Lekheto was one of the key members of the team, creating the success of Lokomotiv in the early 2000s. Together with the Moscow club, Jacob won two championships, one cup and one super cup in Russia - quite impressive achievements.
The player was loved by both the fans and his teammates, and, it would seem, everything was developing more than successfully. But by 2005, everything had changed, and Lekheto did not renew the contract with Lokomotiv, returning to his homeland and concluding an agreement with his native club Moroka. Why did this happen? Nobody knows the exact answer, but there are many different versions. According to the most probable of them, Jacob had to return to Africa, since his wife in Russia fell ill with tuberculosis. Of course, in this story there may be some untruth, as some sources claim that Lekheto really had a wife, others - that she was only a girlfriend, and still others write that he didn’t have a companion in principle. But all these stories are also accompanied by information that Jacob seems to have contracted AIDS.
Homecoming
Thus, in 2005, Lekheto moved back to South Africa, where he played for his own club, Moroka, for another two years. But on September 9, 2008, when he had already left football for a year, the 34-year-old footballer passed away. And again, there is no exact evidence regarding the cause of death. There are various versions, but the most likely is the same AIDS that Jacob Lekheto contracted in Russia. The cause of death was made public in the Russian media, but in the homeland the player is not in a hurry to say the same.
Team appearances
It remains only to summarize the appearances for the national team of the player. Naturally, he played for the South African national team, for which he played 26 matches. The last time was called in 2004 as part of the qualifying tournament for the 2006 World Cup. Then he entered the field for a match with the team of Ghana, and this match was lost by his team with a score of 0: 3. Even then, it was clear that Lekheto had problems because he stopped receiving game practice, although six months ago he had played all three matches in the framework of the 2004 African Nations Cup, where the South African team could not leave the group, having managed to beat only the Benin team and managing to draw even with Moroccans who were far behind in class. Thus, Lekheto missed a chance to win his last trophy.