The Malawi National Football Team, the Flames, had another night of humiliation to endure when they capitulated yet again in a high stakes football match against Angola, bearing the ignominy of failing to score a single goal at the Hollywoodbets COSAFA Cup in South Africa.
The one-nil loss to Angola ended the abysmal and lousy rolling of a movie that promised heaven and the Holy Grail, going by the assistant coach Peter Mponda’s words of assurance that the Flames were hot on a trail “to bring the cup home”.
However, it was misery throughout as the Flames could not muster more than five shots on target across three games that included against Lesotho and Namibia.
Sifting through the debris of this Flames’ crash, all parameters point to a new low the team has reached. The Flames have now hit rock bottom as they failed to shoot on target against Lesotho, eventually losing one-nil before registering two shots on target against their next opponent, Namibia, a feat lauded as a huge achievement by the technical panel.
But, was it not all muddled from the out-set? Peter Mponda made incoherent and irreconcilable statements about the mission of the project at this tournament.
Besides, who was in charge of the team in the line of duty considering head coach Kallisto Pasuwa only joined the team in South Africa from Zimbabwe while Mponda was the one prowling the technical area, shouting commands and handling all pre- and post-match interviews?
Again, how does a coach win a tournament while building a team simultaneously?
Prior to the Lesotho game on 3rd June, 2025 Mponda went on record intimating the Flames would be vying for honours this time around.
He said, “We are going there to compete and try to bring the cup home”.
To any ordinary Flames supporter, that was elevating and uplifting as it gave hope that perhaps it was time for COSAFA glory after over 25 years of only the defunct Cosafa plate to show for it.
But, suddenly, after the ignominous Lesotho loss, there was a change of tune. There now came a sobering, down to earth and practical mission of building a team, as experiments with tactical strategies and combinations rose high to the priority list.
Mponda said this before the Namibia game, “We are using this tournament to give exposure to many players. If we were only chasing results, we could have brought in our top names”.
Surprisingly, the entire technical panel felt no need to freshen and strengthen the squad against Namibia, despite signs of fatigue and faltering. They maintained the same squad the whole 90 minutes despite Namibia trying out fresh players from the bench in a drab 0-0 stalemate.
The building of a team argument could later be discarded as the same rigid squad was maintained, albeit one would argue it was for continuity and consistency, only to succumb yet again to another bruising one-nil loss to Angola.
The argument to expose upcoming and uncapped players showed commitment when Fanizo Mwansambo, Emmanuel Nyirenda, Allen Chihana, Andrew Jovinala, Charles Nkhoma and Oscar Petro were included in the COSAFA squad.
However, they could only be used after key players had sustained injuries. Jovinala was roped in after Maxwell Paipi limped off in the Lesotho game, and Nyirenda was deemed a fitting replacement to Paipi in the two subsequent games.
In the Angola game, Petro and Nkhoma only played because Blessings Singini and Yankho Singo had sustained injuries, which forced the hand of the panel to allow the former to play.
Now, this begs the question as to what was or were the aims of this COSAFA project since throughout the tournament we saw nothing that resembled to sticking and being committed to any.
If the aim was to win the COSAFA tournament, we all know that it has been a fiasco as the Flames have been unceremoniously booted out.
If the mission was exposing upcoming talent, then why were they not used in the Namibia game when many opportunities arose? Why did they maintain the same squad in the subsequent game against Angola?
Could we have seen different results if we had a punt with these upcoming players hungry to make a name when the game needed refreshing?
Did the Pasuwa-led technical panel give Malawians a false start?Was it merely a flash in the pan? Any football enthusiast in Malawi should be bold enough to ask these questions.
As we embark on sifting through the wreckage of this COSAFA tournament debacle, spare a thought to the fiasco in the African Cup of Nations, the seemingly failure to qualify for the World Cup and the disaster in CHAN.
Are we regressing?
