The red carpet was rolled out for top striker Peter Banda but, in the end, it was another little genius, Patrick Phiri, who hogged the limelight with a brace in a 3-2 win over Swaziland in a Group A tie of the Cosafa Youth Championship at Arthur Davies Stadium in Kitwe, Zambia, yesterday.
\nBanda opened the scoring for Malawi in the 14th minute before Phiri stepped in to grab a brace in the 53rd and 64th minutes.
\nMalawi started with an irony as the player who nearly cost the Junior Flames an early goal seconds from kick-off\u2014 Precious Sambani\u2014was the most impressive at left-back.
\nMalawi finished the half strongly, with goalkeeper Mlamuli Lukhele blocking Banda in a one-on-one.
\nSwaziland came with new ideas in the second-half when they resorted to quick counter-attacks and long balls that often breached Malawi\u2019s defence.
\nIn a swift counter-attack, the Swazis reduced the arrears when Muzi Tsabedze outpaced Malawi\u2019s defence, rounded off advancing goalkeeper Charles Thom before shooting into an empty net in the 51st minute.
\nHowever, against the run of play, Phiri reacted the quickest on the other end in Swaziland\u2019s penalty box to score two minutes later.
\nThe drama continued as Malawi defender, Hajison Wali, failed to mark advancing Gamedze and, in trying to avert danger, Thom ended up fouling the Swaziland striker to concede a penalty.
\nGabedze stepped forward to send Thom, who was yellow-carded for the foul, the wrong way in the 58th minute.
\nMalawi did not give up as, after a Swaziland defender had fouled Levison Maganizo, Phiri nodded the ball into the net in the 64th minute from a freekick rebound.
\nThe junior Flames held on to the lead until full time to win the match.
\nSwaziland Coach, Mandla Dlamini, said he was happy with the performance of his charges.
\nTaking his turn, Phiri said: \u201cWe are happy that we have won. We knew it would be tough, being first the game. Although we struggled, it was part of the game. We hope to play better in the next game.\u201d
\nLine ups
\nMalawi: Thom, Maganizo, Wali, Idana, Mike Mkwate, Phiri, Sambani (Petro), Nyasulu (Chambulika), Charles Petro, Mwaila, Banda (Manyozo)
\nSwaziland: Lukhele, Sacolo, Msimbi, Shabalala, Tsabedze, Gamedze, Dlamini, Mamba, Mabuza, Magagugla, Mzwandile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The red carpet was rolled out for top striker Peter Banda but, in the end, it was another little genius, Patrick Phiri, who hogged the limelight with a brace in a 3-2 win over Swaziland in a Group A tie of the Cosafa Youth Championship at Arthur Davies Stadium in Kitwe, Zambia, yesterday. Banda opened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57310","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\/57310","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=57310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57312,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57310\/revisions\/57312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}