Seven goals plundered in three games of two wins and a loss sums up Malawi Under-17 National Football Team\u2019s dance at the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) Youth Championship on the picturesque island nation of Mauritius.<\/p>\n
While such statistics are encouraging, the Junior Flames face their toughest test in the competition when lining up against their South African counterparts in a semifinal at the Stade St Francois Xavier in Port Louis this afternoon.<\/p>\n
Malawi qualified for the last-four from Group B after blasting aside Kenya with a 5-0 win on Wednesday when Peter Banda Jnr bagged a hat-trick.<\/p>\n
It was a timely result for Malawi which opened the campaign with a 2-1 win over the now eliminated Madagascar.<\/p>\n
Yet, evidenced by a 3-0 loss to Zambia in another qualifying game for the group, the Junior Flames have been found wanting when confronted by tougher opposition.<\/p>\n
The South Africans are more experienced as their team is always active, whereas the Derklerk Msakakuona-side was revived early this month in response to the Cosafa competition.<\/p>\n
Malawi team might not survive beyond the youth championship. On the pitch, Malawi\u2019s weight of expectations will once again be on Banda alongside Frank Chizuze and Fransisco Madinga, who have impressed in the championship.<\/p>\n
The 2001 champions, Malawi, are efficient upfront, but keeping it tidy at the back is a challenge.<\/p>\n
Msakakuona should work on making the defence water-tight against the slippery South Africans, whose leading striker, Siphamandla Ntuli\u2014like Banda\u2014has four goals to his credit in the competition.<\/p>\n
However, Banda is optimistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure, it will be a tough game but we have a very good team and our youth performed well during friendly matches. We will take it one match at a time and we will try to do our best,\u201d Banda is quoted as saying on Cosafa website.<\/p>\n
Malawi finished as runners-up in the group with six points, three behind Zambia who take on Namibia in another semifinal later in the day at the same venue. South Africa is coached by Molefi Ntseki.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seven goals plundered in three games of two wins and a loss sums up Malawi Under-17 National Football Team\u2019s dance at the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) Youth Championship on the picturesque island nation of Mauritius. While such statistics are encouraging, the Junior Flames face their toughest test in the competition when lining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29038","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\/29038","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=29038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29042,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29038\/revisions\/29042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}