While the TNM Super League championship race remains hazy, a leading batch of four teams\u2014 Silver Strikers at the summit, second-placed Nyasa Big Bullets with Mafco and Blue Eagles lying third and fourth respectively\u2014are bursting clear from the rest of the chasing pack.<\/p>\n
Silver lead the 16-member table with 42 points from 22 games with the possibility of taking their tally to 66 points, assuming they win all their remaining eight games.<\/p>\n
Defending champions Bullets\u2019 have 41 points with a maximum points tally of 62 whereas Mafco can shoot to 65 points should they claim victory with eight games to go.<\/p>\n
The Salima-based soldiers are tied on 41 points with Bullets.<\/p>\n
Eagles have nine games remaining, translating to 27 points that could stretch their current tally of 21 games played and 39 points to 66 points.<\/p>\n
From these statistics, it is easy to conclude that the eight-time winners, Silver, have the brightest prospects of winning the championship followed by Eagles, Mafco then Bullets in that order.<\/p>\n
Having met on Wednesday in a Fisd Challenge Cup round of 16 match with Silver winning 1-0, Bullets have a chance to get their revenge in today\u2019s league game at Silver Stadium.<\/p>\n
The other remaining games for Silver are away to Kamuzu Barracks, Premier Bet Wizards, Be Forward Wanderers, Moyale Barracks while playing host to Red Lions, Karonga United and Mafco.<\/p>\n
Having lost 1-2 away to Bullets, Silver\u2019s indifferent home form suggests that they are not guaranteed of beating Mafco, who hammered them 3-0 in the first round, let alone Lions.<\/p>\n
Silver can collect maximum points against bad travelers Karonga.<\/p>\n
The Central Bankers have an advantage of more away games as compared to their remaining home fixtures.<\/p>\n
More importantly, the midweek win over Bullets on Wednesday and today\u2019s result could have a psychological effect on both teams\u2019 title ambitions.<\/p>\n
Football analyst, Benjamin Kumwenda, agrees:<\/p>\n
\u201cI see either Silver or Mafco as strong contenders alongside Bullets. But after Wednesday\u2019s loss and if they lose again to Silver, I do not see Bullets retaining the championship,\u201d the National Coaches’ Association General Secretary observed.<\/p>\n
Bullets, who are winless in three consecutive cup and league games, host Karonga, Mafco, Eagles and Dwangwa while hitting the road for a tangle with Civo, Epac and Silver.<\/p>\n
Bullets, though having lost their 100 percent home record, have an advantage of the most home games in the league.<\/p>\n
The same cannot be said about Mafco, who host Wizards, Max Bullets and Silver, yet must travel to face Bullets, Lions, Eagles, Civo and Dwangwa.<\/p>\n
Mafco, who have built on last season\u2019s second-place finish, have tricky fixtures with their only advantage being team work and the form of striker-in-chief, Richard Mbulu. However, Mbulu rarely scores against giants.<\/p>\n
On paper, Eagles have 50-50 chances of winning their remaining fixtures although registering one win, three draws and a loss in the second round is certainly not a form you would expect from a serious championship contender.<\/p>\n
Eagles\u2019 Coach, Derklerk Msakakuona, is pegging his team\u2019s title chances at 50 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot afford to underrate any team. The performance of the teams that are in the championship race seems to depend on whether you are playing two back-to-back games or not on a particular weekend,\u201d Msakakuona said.<\/p>\n
The Area 30 cops host Tigers, Kamuzu Barracks, Mafco and Wanderers while playing away to Karonga, Bullets, Civo and Moyale.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While the TNM Super League championship race remains hazy, a leading batch of four teams\u2014 Silver Strikers at the summit, second-placed Nyasa Big Bullets with Mafco and Blue Eagles lying third and fourth respectively\u2014are bursting clear from the rest of the chasing pack. Silver lead the 16-member table with 42 points from 22 games with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34560","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\/34560","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=34560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34563,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34560\/revisions\/34563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}