{"id":67365,"date":"2018-06-23T07:36:59","date_gmt":"2018-06-23T05:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=67365"},"modified":"2018-06-23T07:52:48","modified_gmt":"2018-06-23T05:52:48","slug":"africas-set-piece-curse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/06\/23\/africas-set-piece-curse\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa\u2019s set piece curse"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
NOTORIOUS FOR CONCEDING LATE \u2014 The Flames<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another set piece. Another own goal. More problems for the brothers in Russia. Such has been the chain of events involving African teams at the ongoing World Cup in Russia.<\/p>\n

The performance of the African teams at the World Cup finals mirrors that of Malawi\u2019s Flames who are notorious for conceding from set plays and late in games.<\/p>\n

Malawi concedes either too early\u2014as they did after succumbing to Mauritius\u2019 fourth-minute goal at the Cosafa Cup in South Africa on May 28\u2014or too late as was the case in the 1-1 draw against Botswana two days later in the same competition.<\/p>\n

In last year\u2019s 1-1 draw in Tanzania, Malawi conceded in the 58th minute. That was neither too early nor too late. But generally that is the trend in most 15 games which the Flames have played under Ronny van Geneugden.<\/p>\n

In fact, such has been the trend for the Flames since time immemorial.<\/p>\n

Against Lesotho, the Flames let in a goal on the stroke of half-time at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe last November.<\/p>\n

During a tour of Morocco last September, the Flames took the lead through Stanley Sanudi but allowed the North African country\u2019s Under-23 side to equalise in the 85th minute.<\/p>\n

Last June, Malawi lost 2-0 to Tanzania at Cosafa Cup after conceding in the 13th and 18th minutes.<\/p>\n

The Flames can take comfort from the fact that the whole continent shares their problems.<\/p>\n

Tunisia\u2019s 2-1 loss to England at the World Cup on Monday summed it all.<\/p>\n

England\u2019s Harry Maguire rose to flick a ball from a corner kick towards the back-post where Harry Kane nodded into the net unchallenged in the dying minutes.<\/p>\n

With that England had broken the resistance of Tunisia and the Three Lions confirmed their win.<\/p>\n

Previously, Egypt succumbed to a late set-piece as the Pharaohs lost 1-0 to Uruguay.<\/p>\n

Morocco, too, conceded in added time just when they appeared to have secured a deserved one point in the game against Iran last week.<\/p>\n

For Nigeria, defender Troost- Ekong needlessly grabbed his opponent for Croatia to concede a penalty spot as the Europeans stormed to a convincing 2-0 win against the unconvincing Super Eagles.<\/p>\n

Nigeria Coach Gernot Rohr reflected on the poor defending.<\/p>\n

“Our system was okay. We cannot play with three when there is only one centre-forward, so we played with four because Croatia had three strikers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we were missing today was to be more professional on set-pieces. Each game is different; we will see for the next game. We know we can play with three centre-backs but today was not that day,\u201d Rohr was quoted as saying by Goal.com.<\/p>\n

In another game at the World Cup, Jose Gimenez punished Egypt with a header in the 89th minute following a free-kick.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, African teams had conceded four of the eight goals from set pieces and most of the goals had come after the 75th minute.<\/p>\n

The African teams were also guilty of conceding own goals and too early. Ronaldo punished Morocco with a fourth-minute bullet header on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Goal.com gives an explanation of what the African teams\u2019 failure to deal with set plays mean to the continent\u2019s football.<\/p>\n

\u201cSet pieces are traditionally seen as an area of the game which can be \u2018got right\u2019 by anyone with good organisation and discipline. Obviously, physical qualities and technical delivery make a difference, but proficient drilling on the training ground \u2014 as well as a coherent strategy \u2014 can make set pieces an area of strength for a side, both offensively and defensively.<\/p>\n

It plain language African teams are not organised on and off the pitch. Surely, the Flames can easily relate to that. Thankfully, they are not alone.<\/p>\n

How African sides have conceded goals <\/strong><\/p>\n

Free-kick (Egypt)<\/p>\n

Free-kick (Morocco)<\/p>\n

Corner (Nigeria)<\/p>\n

Penalty(conceded at a corner) (Nigeria)<\/p>\n

Corner (Tunisia)<\/p>\n

Corner (Tunisia)<\/p>\n

Corner (Senegal)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another set piece. Another own goal. More problems for the brothers in Russia. Such has been the chain of events involving African teams at the ongoing World Cup in Russia. The performance of the African teams at the World Cup finals mirrors that of Malawi\u2019s Flames who are notorious for conceding from set plays and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67365","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\/67365","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=67365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67370,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67365\/revisions\/67370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}