Lekheto Jacob is an African from Lokomotiv

In the Russian football championship recently more and more often look legionnaires - players from other countries. However, this practice did not begin now - and earlier in Russian clubs foreign players played. One of the most vivid examples of the beginning of zero is the South African defender Lekheto. Jacob Lekheto for a long time spoke for the Moscow "Locomotive" and remembered the fans for a long time. If you are not familiar with it, then this article will tell you some details of his biography. Lekheto Jacob is far from being a world-class star, but he brought enough benefits to the teams he played for.

Carier start

Lekheto Jacob was born on March 24, 1974 in the city of Soweto, in the South African Republic. Unlike most European football players, who already before the beginning of their professional career, that is, before reaching the age of majority, manage to swap several clubs, Jacob did not particularly choose in childhood. He was in the academy of the African club Moroka Swallows and played for the youth teams of this club. Unfortunately, he did not immediately get a place in the main team - for a while 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 in the position of both the defender and the midfielder, but he was best given the game on the left in defense.

Performances for the native club

Jacob Lekheto completely worked out his five-year contract with "Moroka", playing in almost one hundred and fifty games. Naturally, the club tried to extend the agreement with the player, but in the beginning of 2001, it already began to receive calls from abroad, the most attractive among which looked the proposal of the Moscow "Locomotive". Naturally, Lekheto agreed to a salary increase, and it was also pleasant to play for a strong club of a rather serious European league. Therefore, the "Loco" appeared a new legionnaire - twenty-six-year-old Jacob Lekheto. The player's biography 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. Given his age and experience, Lekheto was not taken at all as a cat in a sack - in his abilities were confident, and he immediately began to demonstrate his power. Jacob immediately gained the confidence of the coach and became the player of the base. With the task he coped, and for four years regularly played the role of the left defender. Lekheto was one of the key members of the team that created the success of "Locomotive" at the beginning of the zero. Together with the Moscow club, Jacob won two championships, one cup and one super cup of Russia - quite impressive achievements.

The player was loved both by the fans and by his team-mates, and, it would seem, everything developed more than successfully. But by 2005 everything had changed, and Lekheto did not renew his contract with Lokomotiv, returning home and concluding an agreement with his native Moroka club. Why did this happen? No one knows the exact answer, but there are many different versions. According to the most likely of them, Jacob had to return to Africa, as his wife in Russia became ill with tuberculosis. Of course, in this story there may be a share of untruth, as some sources claim that Lekheto did have a wife, others - that only a girlfriend, and others in general write that he did not have a companion in principle. But all these stories are also accompanied by information that Jacob, apparently, fell ill with AIDS.

Homecoming

Thus, in 2005, Lekheto moved back to South Africa, where for two more years he played for his native club "Moroka". But on September 9, 2008, when he had already left football for a year, the 34-year-old football player died. And again, there is no exact data on the cause of death. There are different versions, but the most likely is the same AIDS that Jacob Lekheto has contracted in Russia. The cause of death was made public in the Russian media, but in the homeland, the player does not rush to say the same thing.

National team appearances

It remains only to sum up the performances for the national team of this player. Naturally, he played for the national team of South Africa, for which he played 26 games. The last time was called in 2004 as part of the qualifying tournament for the 2006 World Championships. Then he went to the field for a match with the Ghana national team, and this match was lost by his team with a score of 0: 3. Already then it was clear that Lekheto had problems, because he stopped getting game practice, even six months ago he played all three matches in the framework of the African Nations Cup in 2004, where the national team of South Africa could not leave the group, having managed to beat only the national team of Benin and Managed to play a draw even with a strongly inferior class in the class of Moroccans. Thus, Lekheto missed a chance to win his last trophy.