Malawi national football team held its own against fancied Uganda\u2019s Cranes to settle for a 0-0 draw at the 45,000-seater Mandela National Stadium in Namboole, Kampala, the seventh draw in 12 games for the Flames Coach Ronny van Geneugden.<\/p>\n
Van Geneugden, whose charges are fine-tuning for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches against Morocco, Cameroon and Comoros islands, should be encouraged by the clean sheet but certainly not the finishing.<\/p>\n
The Flames\u2019 coach has won twice and lost thrice since being hired last April.<\/p>\n
The Belgian Tuesday handed Be Forward Wanderers left-back Precious Sambani a debut in a reported defensive 4-5-1 formation featuring Portugal-based Richard Mbulu as the lone striker.<\/p>\n
Chiukepo Msowoya, who scored when Malawi beat Uganda 1-0 at Kamuzu Stadium in 2015, replaced Mbulu, whereas Frank Banda stepped in for Chawanangwa Kawonga in the second-half.<\/p>\n
Malawi were without regulars Gabadinho Mhango, Gerald Phiri Junior and Robert Ng\u2019ambi due to varied reasons.<\/p>\n
Rwandan referee Louis Hakizimana officiated the match between the 123 ranked Malawi against Uganda who are placed 78th in the world.<\/p>\n
Uganda Coach, Sebastien Desabre, made three changes to the squad that beat Sao Tome and Principe 3-1 on Saturday, with Denis Iguma, Tadeo Lwanga and Yunus Sentamu replacing Nico Wadada, Geofrey Kizito and William Kizito, respectively.<\/p>\n
The two teams have met 28 times, with Uganda winning 14 times against eight victories for Malawi. They have six draws between them.<\/p>\n
Flames starting XI<\/strong>: Charles Swini, Gomezgani Chirwa, Limbikani Mzava, Chembezi Denis, Sambani, John Banda Rafik Namwera, Robin Ngalande, Dalitso Sailesi, Kawonga (Frank Banda), Mbulu (Msowoya).<\/p>\n Uganda Cranes XI<\/strong>: Dennis Onyango (Captain), Iguma, Godfrey Walusimbi, Bevis Mugabi, Murushid Jjuuko, Lwanga, Hassan Wasswa Mawanda, Milton Karisa, Emmanuel Okwi, Sentamu, Joseph Ochaya<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malawi national football team held its own against fancied Uganda\u2019s Cranes to settle for a 0-0 draw at the 45,000-seater Mandela National Stadium in Namboole, Kampala, the seventh draw in 12 games for the Flames Coach Ronny van Geneugden. Van Geneugden, whose charges are fine-tuning for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":63056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63053","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\/63053","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=63053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63057,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63053\/revisions\/63057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}