With just your left palm and your right eye closed, you can still count the competitive games Malawi National Football Team, the Flames, have won on the road in the last decade.<\/p>\n
Results which quickly come to mind are few such as that Gabadinho Mhango-inspired 1-0 win in Namibia in 2013.<\/p>\n
Before that, Malawi defeated smaller opposition such as Djibouti and Chad between 2008 and 2009.<\/p>\n
However, against strong opposition, the Flames struggle even for a draw.<\/p>\n
Recent away form for the Flames is that of a 1-1, 0-0, 1-1 and 2-2 draws in Guinea, Namibia, Liberia and Swaziland plus 3-0 and 2-0 losses in Zimbabwe and Tanzania.<\/p>\n
And the reasons are usually psychological, tactical and largely, logistical.<\/p>\n
Individually, the Flames have good players but over the years, gelling them into a stubborn defensive bunch, getting the right away tactics and logistics have often undermined the team\u2019s away form.<\/p>\n
Usually, home teams do their home-work they man-mark star players for visiting teams.<\/p>\n
Malawi is bad at studying the opposition.<\/p>\n
Therefore, it is paramount for visiting teams to devise multiple sources of scoring either through set-play or by applying street-wise tactics.<\/p>\n
The Flames need free-kick and corner-kick specialists to salvage something from nothing when the chips are down.<\/p>\n
The team needs a solid defence and an opportunistic striker to score from nothing.<\/p>\n
On paper, the defence of Francis Mlimbika, Lucky Malata, John Lanjesi and Stanley Sanudi offers depth of experience, but often times, it is about the collective defending that is the problem.<\/p>\n
The team lacks a leader to dictate the pace of the game. In all this, being defensively sound is paramount.<\/p>\n
The striking force, which Muhamad Sulumba is leading, is also goal-shy.<\/p>\n
So, with the world football governing body, Fifa, guaranteeing the Flames funding for transport and accommodation plus Ronny van Geneugden\u2019s perks, all the coach needs to work on is the team\u2019s away form.<\/p>\n
Either grinding out a point or winning ugly away would be crucial if the Flames are to last the distance in the Chan qualifiers starting from today in Madagascar.<\/p>\n
To qualify for the Chan finals in Kenya next year, Malawi will play six games.<\/p>\n
Add the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers and the Cosafa Cup fixtures, then you have a traffic jam.<\/p>\n
The winner between Malawi and Madagascar will date Mozambique over two legs in July.<\/p>\n
Thereafter, the overall winner will qualify for the third and final round in August with Mauritius, Seychelles and Angola as likely opponents.<\/p>\n
Teams are competing in their respective zones in this competition exclusive to home-based players.<\/p>\n
The Flames are returning to the competition for the first time since making a debut in 2011 when Angola booted them out 3-1 on aggregate.<\/p>\n
From that squad of 2011, only Chimango Kayira, Peter Wadabwa and Dave Banda are the survivors with the rest either struggling for form or retired.<\/p>\n
Surely, the midfielders know what it takes to play in the Chan qualifiers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With just your left palm and your right eye closed, you can still count the competitive games Malawi National Football Team, the Flames, have won on the road in the last decade. Results which quickly come to mind are few such as that Gabadinho Mhango-inspired 1-0 win in Namibia in 2013. Before that, Malawi defeated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44888","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\/44888","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=44888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44892,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44888\/revisions\/44892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}