Football can sometimes be cruel. Civo United day sucker-punched Be Forward Wanderers 1-0 to snatch this year\u2019s Standard Bank Knock-Out Cup at a jam-packed Civo Stadium in Lilongwe.<\/p>\n
After a long wait, Civo finally got a glimpse of the cup and with it, a glittering trophy and K10 million championship prize.<\/p>\n
The game looked destined for post-match penalties, but it was man of the moment, Nelson Kangunje, who broke the hearts of Wanderers family when he scored a late winner in the 88th minute and ended Civo\u2019s cup drought.<\/p>\n
He fired a low shot after Nomads defence was caught napping following Wyson Nkhana\u2019s free-kick. It was game over and mission accomplished for Civo.<\/p>\n
After the final whistle, Civo painted the stadium yellow as they celebrated their first cup final victory since 2010 when they clinched the Presidential Cup.<\/p>\n
Nomads players wept and could not believe that their good cup record was brought to an end. Wanderers coach Elijah Kananji\u2019s cup double mission went in vain.<\/p>\n
It was the first time that Civo have won this cup after losing previous finals against Azam Tigers and Moyale Barracks in 2009 and 2010 respectively.<\/p>\n
In the first half, Nomads had a slight advantage, but missed some good scoring opportunities. Kondwani Kumwenda had a goal attempt cleared off the line by Blessings Kawanga.<\/p>\n
Jabulani Linje and Isaac Kaliati were constant threats in the first half. The first half failed to produce goals.<\/p>\n
After recess, Civo produced a sublime performance and pressurised the Nomads, with Gerald Nkungula and Kangunje the most dangerous weapons.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Civo dominated the midfield through Dan Msimuko, who had a grand game.<\/p>\n
In a post-match interview, Civo assistant coach, Beggie Mwagomba, praised the performance of his charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that we would win the cup and we told the boys to keep on fighting. We did everything to win the cup and the players did a good job,\u201d Mwagomba said.<\/p>\n
On his part, Wanderers assistant team manager, Steve Madeira, conceded defeat and congratulated Civo for winning the cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe failed to utilise our chances in the first half and Civo punished us with a late goal, we say congratulations to them,\u201d Madeira said.<\/p>\n
The match was watched by Minister of Sports and Culture, Grace Chiumia and other high profile officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Football can sometimes be cruel. Civo United day sucker-punched Be Forward Wanderers 1-0 to snatch this year\u2019s Standard Bank Knock-Out Cup at a jam-packed Civo Stadium in Lilongwe. After a long wait, Civo finally got a glimpse of the cup and with it, a glittering trophy and K10 million championship prize. The game looked destined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11330,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11327\/revisions\/11330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}