{"id":75936,"date":"2019-03-22T11:22:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T09:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=75936"},"modified":"2019-03-22T11:22:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T09:22:56","slug":"flames-eye-consolation-in-afcon-qualifier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/03\/22\/flames-eye-consolation-in-afcon-qualifier\/","title":{"rendered":"Flames eye consolation in Afcon qualifier"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mabvuto Kambuwe: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Malawi national football team conclude the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers with a dead rubber encounter against Morocco at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe this afternoon.<\/p>\n

With a battered reputation on the continent under Belgian mentor Ronny van Geneugden (RVG), having only won two games since he took over in 2017, the Flames might be looking for a perfect response against the Atlas Lions\u2014a side with vast experience.<\/p>\n

Surely, it is time for redemption for the home side, which has turned into a punch bag on the continent in all competitions.<\/p>\n

Heading into the match, statistics do not favour the Flames as they have won just a single match against Morocco in nine matches, with two draws and six losses.<\/p>\n

The last time Malawi won against the North Africans was during the qualifiers of the same competition in 1993, with a 1-0 scoreline in Rabat.<\/p>\n

The Flames started the continental campaign with a 1-0 victory over Comoros Islands at the same venue but lost 3-0 away to Morocco in the second game before registering a 1-0 loss to Cameroon.<\/p>\n

They drew 0-0 against Cameroon in the third game, followed by a 2-1 loss to Comoros in Moroni. Malawi has conceded six goals so far and scored only twice.<\/p>\n

Flames assistant Coach Peter Mponda, who has been drilling the team alongside Franco Ndawa as RVG was busy with the under-23 side which lost 0-1 to Zambia<\/a> on Wednesday, said the players were looking forward to wrapping up the campaign with a win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is seriousness in the boys which is giving us confidence that we will do something special to please our fans. We know Morocco are a very good team but we will not give them respect because we want to win,\u201d<\/em> Mponda said on Thursday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some of RVG\u2019s most potent weapons are in the form of Gabadihno Mhango, Yamikani Chester, John Banda, Binwel Katinji, Chikoti Chirwa, Stanley Sanudi, John Lanjesi and Peter Cholopi.<\/p>\n

The Atlas Lions arrived in the country on Thursday morning on a chartered plane and had their first training session at the match venue in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

Morocco Coach Herve Renard has named a strong squad comprising Captain Medhi Benatia, Ajax striker Hakim Ziyech, Borussia Dortmund defender Achraf Hakimi, Malaga goalkeeper Mounir El Kajoui, Younes Belhanda of Galatasaray and Schalke 04\u2019s Hamza Mendy.<\/p>\n

Morocco have already qualified for this year\u2019s finals with 10 points, followed by Cameroon on eight points.<\/p>\n

Comoros are third with five points from five games whereas Malawi anchor the group with four points from the same number of games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mabvuto Kambuwe: Malawi national football team conclude the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers with a dead rubber encounter against Morocco at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe this afternoon. With a battered reputation on the continent under Belgian mentor Ronny van Geneugden (RVG), having only won two games since he took over in 2017, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":75940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75936","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\/75936","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=75936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75941,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75936\/revisions\/75941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}