Malawi National Football Team Head Coach, Ronny Van Geneugden, has indicated that he will feature a strong squad at this year\u2019s Cosafa Castle Cup to take place from June 25 to July 9 in South Africa.<\/p>\n
Geneugden told journalists in Lilongwe on Saturday after the 1-0 victory over Comoros Islands in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe that he will feature the squad that played on the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already have a very young squad with a good balance between experience and young players. So we will go to Cosafa with our strongest team. This is a new technical panel and it is important that we stay together with the squad so that the players cultivate good relations on and off the pitch,\u201d Geneugden explained.<\/p>\n
The Belgian said he will use the tournament to continue experimenting on his football philosophy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a very complete group that has great friendship. The players and officials are all pulling in one direction, which is great for football,\u201d Geneugden said.<\/p>\n
During the match against Comoros, the coach made a surprise decision by dropping some regulars including Francis Mlimbika for debutant Dennis Chembezi who had a grand game.<\/p>\n
Chikoti Chirwa of Red Lions also played a key role as a holding midfielder.<\/p>\n
Geneugden said the technical panel was choosing players on merit and not based on where they play at club level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have nothing to do with where they play, whether in Malawi, South Africa, Mozambique or Europe, I do not care. As a technical panel, we agreed on picking only the best players for Malawi and we have a game plan,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n
After the game, Flames Captain, Limbikani Mzava, hailed the impact of the Belgian\u2019s tactics, saying the players are now focused on the Cosafa tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played fantastic football. We will remain focused as we go to South Africa and we will do our best to bring the cup,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Malawi and Cameroon are at par in Group B of the Afcon qualifiers with three points following their victories over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Drawn in Group A alongside Tanzania, Angola and Mauritius at this year\u2019s Cosafa Cup, the Flames need to be at their best to reach the quarterfinals of this year\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n
The overall winner will book a quarterfinal berth against defending champions Bafana Bafana.<\/p>\n
Last year, Malawi was knocked out of the tournament during the group stages after losing 1-0 to Lesotho in the quarterfinal play-offs in Namibia.<\/p>\n
The Flames have never won the competition since its inception and their closest was reaching the final in 2002 and 2003 under Kim Splidsboel.<\/p>\n
Flames beat Comoros 1-0 courtesy of Gerald Phiri Jnr\u2019s well-taken free kick in the first half.<\/p>\n
He also scored under similar circumstances last year against Swaziland at Kamuzu Stadium in the Flames\u2019 last qualifying match for Afcon 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malawi National Football Team Head Coach, Ronny Van Geneugden, has indicated that he will feature a strong squad at this year\u2019s Cosafa Castle Cup to take place from June 25 to July 9 in South Africa. Geneugden told journalists in Lilongwe on Saturday after the 1-0 victory over Comoros Islands in the 2019 Africa Cup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":48254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48252","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\/48252","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=48252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48257,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48252\/revisions\/48257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}