They mobbed him before throwing him in the air at the corner flag. The Flames players could not believe it. The Flames\u2019 lone-goal scorer, Miracle Gabeya, could not believe it either\u2014 he left the pitch battling tears of joy.<\/p>\n
Youthful defender Gabeya scored on the 47th minute to eventually earn the Flames a 1-0 win over Mauritius in a Group B Cosafa Castle Cup match at Independence Stadium, in Namibia last night.<\/p>\n
Ironically, the creator of the goal was Gerald Phiri Jnr. In doing so, two boys, whose inclusion in Flames has always been treated with contempt, combined to keep the Flames\u2019 quarterfinal dream alive.<\/p>\n
Gabeya and Phiri repaid the faith that Flames coach Ernest Mtawali has in selecting them despite that the former is not a regular at Nyasa Big Bullets and the latter has not played competitively for a year at club level.<\/p>\n
Malawi remain second on goal-aggregate in Group B with six points at par with leaders Lesotho, who defeated Angola 2-0 in an earlier match at the same stadium in Windhoek.<\/p>\n
Second on six points, due to goal-aggregate, the Flames must beat leaders Lesotho, who defeated Angola 2-0 also yesterday, to qualify for the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Quite a task but the Flames believe it is possible now that they have kept clean sheets in three consecutive games.<\/p>\n
Malawi went into yesterday\u2019s game needing nothing short of a win, yet faced tough opposition. Mauritius deployed defensive lines, kicked-and-rushed long balls while applying a shoot-on sight policy upfront.<\/p>\n
The islanders\u2019 approach seemed to work as Jean Sophie scorched Charles Swini\u2019s palms with a bullet from close range two minutes into the game. Swini punched it out for a corner-kick, which the Flames easily smothered.<\/p>\n
Two minutes later, the islanders came asking questions again on Malawi\u2019s defending. Guiyano Chiffone curled his dipping shot towards the Flames\u2019 goal-mouth. Fortunately, Francis Mlimbika whipped the ball off the line with his knee.<\/p>\n
Soon, the Flames, playing an attacking 4-3- 3 system with no change from the starting XI that beat Angola 3-0 on Sunday, briefly came out of their blocks. Gabadinho Mhango missed marginally after pulling the trigger from range as Mauritius retreated.<\/p>\n
Mhango, who scored a hat-trick on Sunday, was relieved to stay on the pitch with just a yellow card from referee Simanga Nhleko after kicking a Mauritius player in an off-the-ball incident while aiming from Phiri Jnr\u2019s corner-kick from the left.<\/p>\n
Mauritius, ranked 187, soon grew in confidence, closing all the spaces for the 107th-ranked Malawi, who were forced to pump long balls upfront. First-half ended goal-less with the Flames visibly frustrated.<\/p>\n
In the second half, Malawi got the start they yearned for as defender Gabeya powerfully headed into the far post after meeting Phiri\u2019s corner-kick at the near-post in the 47th minute.<\/p>\n
It was Gabeya\u2019s first Flames goal that must, as is the case with Phiri, silenced his critics. Even more vindicated was Mtawali.<\/p>\n
However, Mauritius did not go down with a fight. They kept pushing for an equal iser but Gabeya stood firm like Jericho Wall. Eventually, Mtawali withdrew Joseph Kamwendo for Yamikani Fodya to shut the door. It was game over.<\/p>\n
It was the first Cosafa Cup meeting between the two teams with Malawi seeking maximum points while the islanders were searching for their first point. Mauritius and Angola are out of the race.<\/p>\n
Malawi\u2019s line-up: Swini, Harry Nyirenda, Stanley Sanudi, Gabeya, Francis Mlimbika, Kamwendo (Fodya), Phiri Jnr, Rafiq Namwela, Isaac Kaliyati, Chiukepo Msowoya, Mhango (Wonderful Jelemani).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They mobbed him before throwing him in the air at the corner flag. The Flames players could not believe it. The Flames\u2019 lone-goal scorer, Miracle Gabeya, could not believe it either\u2014 he left the pitch battling tears of joy. Youthful defender Gabeya scored on the 47th minute to eventually earn the Flames a 1-0 win […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26217","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\/26217","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=26217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26251,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26217\/revisions\/26251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}