BY JOSEPH MSONTH AND MERCY CHIDZOMBE
The Malawi national football team, the Flames, have made an intent statement to book a place in the 2025 finals of the African Nations Champions (CHAN) to be played from August 3 to August 30 this year after edging past South Africa’s Bafana Bafana 1-0 in the first leg encounter of the second preliminary round match played at Bingu National Stadium (BNS).
A scintillating match played on the bright afternoon of Saturday May 3 had South Africa enter the field of play as favorites to win the game while the Flames went into the match as underdogs. However, after 87 minutes of pulsating display of football which left football fans frenzy. Zeliat Nkhoma connected a corner kick set piece delivered into the box by Wisdom Mpinganjira to make it 1-0 in favour of the hosts Malawi the Flames.
With the result the Flames have an advantage over South Africa heading into the return tie to be staged at Loftus Stadium in South Africa on May 11 to confirm the team that will play in the finals that will be co-hosted by the Eastern African Countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
CHAN, a tournament organized by Confederation of African Football (CAF) was first kicked off in 2009 with eight teams participating. The tournament only features locally based players. Currently 19 teams participate in the tournamernt.
The 16th edition finals will be played from August 3 and Malawi the Flames have never made it to the finals since the inception of the tournament and if they qualify after booting out South Africa, Malawi will make history to have appeared for the first time at the finals.
Speaking after the match on Saturday May 3, Flames tactician, Kalisto Pasuwa said it was a tough match and he was quick to praise his charges for a hard fought victory,
Pasuwa has also warned his players not to be complacent with the win at BNS advising them that they should take it as if the game is just at half time with another half to be played away in South Africa and Malawi is just leading at half time.
“South Africa came hard and strong against us and surely it took determination and resilience for Malawi to win this game here at home. Despite that Bafana Bafana was a continuous threat in today’s match. My boys fought hard to take a lead and win the first leg of the match.
“It is always good to take advantage of the 12th player who are supporters and what the boys have done will be a morale booster as we head to South Africa where our opponents will have a home ground advantage. My boys should keep their focus to win the second leg. They can only be recognized if they beat giants of the region like South Africa,” Pasuwa said.
His counterpart, Bafana Bafana coach, Molefi Ntseki has congratulated the Flames on the deserved win saying his charges did everything possible to snatch a point from this match but Malawi were a better side of the day.
“We played well and our aim was to score a goal and get either a point or maximum three points but Malawi had other plans and they have frustrated us. It is now time to sit down with my backroom staff to see where we got it wrong and rectify the mistakes so that we win in the return match with a good margin to overcome today’s results,” he said.
Since the inception of the tournament in 2009, Tunisia and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have the mist titles shared both having one it twice.
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