Zambia fans booed their own under-20 national team and rallied behind Malawi as they forced a goalless draw at a packed Arthur Davies Stadium in Kitwe, Zambia, yesterday evening.
\nThe draw saw the junior Flames consolidate their chances of qualifying for the semi-final of the Cosafa Championship .
\nSecond-placed Malawi, who meet Uganda on Monday, have four points, at par with the leaders, the Cranes, who drew 2-2 with Swaziland in an early kick-off at the same venue yesterday.
\nA banner on the eastern side, placed in front of a dancing boys\u2019 brigade at the stadium, read \u2018Go Zambia Go.\u2019 But it was Malawi who easily started going forward.
\nFirst, the hosts\u2019defenders cleared off the line Peter Banda\u2019s corner-kick which had dropped on the goal-mouth, five minutes into the contest.
\nThe contrast between the two teams was clear in Zambia\u2019s long balls compared to Malawi\u2019s pass and move style.
\nA minute later, Patrick Phiri wriggled his way past Zambia defenders and took a shot, only for his effort to be deflected.
\nMike Mkwate picked the loose ball but the goalkeeper smothered the effort of the Nyasa Big Bullets\u2019 boy.
\nHowever, Zambia soon came out of the blocks. Franscisco Mwepu glanced his header from a right cross over the bar, then shot wide from the edge of the box after escaping the attention of left-back Precious Sambani in the 22nd minute.
\nMalawi should have gone in front but Levison Maganizo side-footed his effort over the bar after Sambani had released Phiri, who turned his marker inside out and squared the ball.
\nMkwate then forced Zambia keeper Sikanyika to tip his long range effort from the right over the frame in the 27th minute.
\nThe junior Flames survived a big scare as goalkeeper Charles Thom made a full stretch dive to his left to deny
\nEdward Chilufya with five minutes to the break.
\nThe first-half ended goalless.
\nPlay resumed on a high tempo with Zambia thinking they had scored when Franscisco Mwepu glanced his header into the net after connecting Lameck Banda\u2019s cross but the effort was ruled out for off-side.
\nMalawi held on to snatch a point and Zambian fans joined them in celebrating.
\nOnly group winners will proceed to the semi-finals alongside overall best runner-ups.
\nMalawi Coach, Gerald Phiri Senior, made one change from the squad that defeated Swaziland 3-2 on Wednesday by dropping Kondwani Mwaila for winger Ernest Petro in a 4-4-2 formation.
\nLine ups
\nMalawi: Thom, Maganizo, Wali, Idana, Mkwate, Phiri, Sambani, Nyasulu, C. Petro, E. Petro, Banda.
\nZambia: Sikanyika, Mumba, Hakwiya, Mwanza, Banda, Chilufya, Kolala, Kasokola, Mwepu, Muma, Sunzu.
\nGroup A standings
\nPld Pts
\nUganda 2 4
\nMalawi 2 4
\nSwaziland 2 1
\nZambia 2 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zambia fans booed their own under-20 national team and rallied behind Malawi as they forced a goalless draw at a packed Arthur Davies Stadium in Kitwe, Zambia, yesterday evening. The draw saw the junior Flames consolidate their chances of qualifying for the semi-final of the Cosafa Championship . Second-placed Malawi, who meet Uganda on Monday, […]<\/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-57402","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\/57402","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=57402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57403,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57402\/revisions\/57403"}],"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=57402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}