The 34-year-old Kakuta, once a teenage prodigy at Chelsea and now plying his trade in the second tier of the Turkish league, had not featured for DR Congo in the past 15 months. Stroeykens suffered a knee injury while playing for Anderlecht in the Belgian league over the weekend, paving the way for Kakuta’s surprise recall.

French-born Kakuta will be playing in his second Africa Cup of Nations, with DR Congo drawn in Group D alongside Benin, Botswana, and top seeds Senegal. He was also part of the squad at the last finals in Ivory Coast, where DR Congo lost 2-0 to South Africa in the third-place play-off.

Kakuta represented France at youth level up to the Under-21s but switched allegiance to DR Congo in 2017.

The winger’s early career was marked by controversy. Chelsea received a transfer ban from FIFA in 2009 after signing him from French club Racing Lens, but the ban was lifted after a ruling determined Kakuta did not have a valid contract with Lens at the time.

Kakuta spent eight years at Chelsea, making just six first-team appearances while going on six loan spells. In 2015, he joined Sevilla for a single season before embarking on a nomadic career across 27 clubs, with his latest stint at Sakaryspor in Turkey.