Malawi under-20 national football team\u2019s Cosafa Championship campaign is over after the team settled for a 1-1 draw against Uganda at a deserted Arthur Davies Stadium in Kitwe, Zambia.<\/p>\n
This means Uganda have qualified for the semi-final on goal-aggregate.<\/p>\n
The junior Flames could have snatched a late winner but striker Patrick Phiri messed up when scoring seemed easier than missing.<\/p>\n
Malawi, who needed nothing short of a win, wound up their Group A matches with five points, at par with the leaders Uganda.<\/p>\n
Malawi Coach Gerald Phiri\u2019s reaction summed it all.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is so sad that we are out in this manner. We knew it was always going to be difficult as Uganda needed just a draw and we needed a win. It was even tougher as our opponents played a defensive game,\u201d Phiri said.<\/p>\n
His counterpart, Matthias Lule, was at his defiant best, saying: \u201cThe secret to this game was winning all second balls and that goal did it all for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a good part of the game, Uganda sat back and threw long balls upfront on the break.<\/p>\n
The East African guests gave Malawi a scare when Stephen Mukwala of Uganda escaped his marker and shot past goalkeeper Charles Thom, only for Hajison Wali to whip the ball away to safety on the half-hour mark.<\/p>\n
The junior Flames dominated in their own territory, knocking passes around but lacked penetration in the opponents\u2019 half.<\/p>\n
The first half ended goalless.<\/p>\n
When play resumed, Lule pulled out Tubita for Mujahid Ogama, who nearly scored with a header minutes later.<\/p>\n
Malawi right-back, Nickson Nyasulu, came off for Fransisco Madinga in an attacking move.<\/p>\n
Against the run of play, Peter Banda squared the ball outside the 18-yard box for Madinga, who raced forward and fired an angled shot which Uganda keeper Ken Saidi could not stop in the 70th minute.<\/p>\n
But Uganda equalised when Mukwala rose the highest to head the ball into the net in the 81st minute.<\/p>\n
Malawi tried to salvage something from the game by introducing Ronald Pangani for Petro but it was too little, too late.<\/p>\n
Line-ups: <\/strong><\/p>\n Malawi: <\/strong>Thom, Mwaila, C. Petro, Nyasulu (Madinga), Wali, Maganizo, Mkwate, E. Petro (Manyozo), Idana, Banda (Pangani), Phiri.<\/p>\n Uganda: <\/strong>Saidi, Geofrey, Mujuzi, Owori (Tumwesige), Tibita (Ogama), Mukwala, Kizza, Kuchi, Kasule, Matovu, Julius<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malawi under-20 national football team\u2019s Cosafa Championship campaign is over after the team settled for a 1-1 draw against Uganda at a deserted Arthur Davies Stadium in Kitwe, Zambia. This means Uganda have qualified for the semi-final on goal-aggregate. The junior Flames could have snatched a late winner but striker Patrick Phiri messed up when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57501","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\/57501","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=57501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57513,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57501\/revisions\/57513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}