{"id":66200,"date":"2018-06-03T05:19:02","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T03:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=66200"},"modified":"2018-06-03T05:21:45","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T03:21:45","slug":"flames-flop-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/06\/03\/flames-flop-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Flames flop again"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FINISHED BOTTOM OF GROUP B\u2014The Flames<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Football Association of Malawi (Fam) Vice President, James Mwenda has apologised to Malawians for the Flames\u2019 characteristic failure to reach Cosafa Castle Cup quarter-finals in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Mwenda said Fam is disappointed with the Flames\u2019 failure to reach the competition\u2019s quarterfinals for the second consecutive year.<\/p>\n

He said Fam would do all it can to ensure that the Flames should bounce back strongly in next year\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n

\u2018We know people had high expectations after last year\u2019s disappointment. We did our best to prepare the team for the competition but it is sad that things have not worked out. We are very sorry for the disappointment. We know that Malawians are very disappointed with their team,\u2019 Mwenda said.<\/p>\n

Mwenda, who heads Fam\u2019s technical committee, said the association will wait for a report from the technical panel to appreciate the challenges the team faced at the regional tournament.<\/p>\n

Flames vice captain, John Banda, also apologised to Malawians for the team\u2019s early exit from the competition on Wednesday evening after giving away a 1-0 lead to draw 1-1 with Botswana.<\/p>\n

However, the Flames Head Coach, Ronny van Geneugden (RVG), insist that the Flames are progressing under his reign which has produced eight draws, four defeats and two wins.<\/p>\n

The Belgian insisted that his reign should also be looked at in context with Malawi under-17 and 20 football teams\u2019 performances.<\/p>\n

The Under-20 team, which Meke Mwase coaches, is two games [against South Africa] away from qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations final at that level.<\/p>\n

Malawi under-17, which Derklerk Msakakuona manages, has won Cosafa Cup bronze in two consecutive years.<\/p>\n

Msakakuona first led the under-17 team to a bronze medal in 2016 before RVG was appointed, before reclaiming it last year in Mauritius.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the Flames, which RVG is fully in charge, have gone eight games without a win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Football Association of Malawi (Fam) Vice President, James Mwenda has apologised to Malawians for the Flames\u2019 characteristic failure to reach Cosafa Castle Cup quarter-finals in South Africa. Mwenda said Fam is disappointed with the Flames\u2019 failure to reach the competition\u2019s quarterfinals for the second consecutive year. He said Fam would do all it can to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":66204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66200","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\/66200","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=66200"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66207,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66200\/revisions\/66207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}