Football Association of Malawi (FAM) president Walter Nyamilandu has challenged newly appointed Flames head coach Ronny Van Geneugden to bring back Malawi to winning ways saying Malawians are tired of losing.
He was speaking during the unveiling ceremony of Geneugden as coach at Mpira Village in Chiwembe on Saturday morning.
In his speech, Nyamilandu said the past two years have been hell to soccer loving Malawians as the team kept on performing poorly in any competition.
&We are tired of losing. We have challenged Ronny Van Geneugden to bring back the team to winning ways. The past two years have been hell to Malawians following the team’s poor performances in competitions and we want to be happy again.
&As such, we want the new coach to improve the team’s performance from the current state. We have been performing poorly and we cannot keep on disappointing Malawians,& he explained.
Reacting to Nyamilandu’s sentiments, the former Belgium midfielder said nothing is impossible but he pleaded with Malawians to support him in order to turn Malawi into a winning side.
&Nothing is impossible. If we can work together, we can turn Malawi into winning ways but togetherness is very important if we are to achieve that,& said Geneugden.
The former Genk and Leuven head coach has put pen to paper to a two year contract with the FA.
According to the country’s soccer governing body, funding from FIFA and other sponsors will be responsible for paying the expatriate.
He becomes the second coach from Belgium to coach Malawi following in the footsteps of Thom Saintfiet who once coached the team in 2014 on a voluntary basis.
His first assignment will be Malawi’s away trip to Madagascar in the 2018 CHAN qualifiers. He will be deputised by Gerald Phiri and Deklerk Msakakuona, with Peter Mponda and Phillip Nyasulu coming in as team manager and goalkeepers’ trainer respectively.
We have no quality players in the team. We have no winning system of play. We have no robust “nursery” programne where to train the future national players.
You can bring in the best coaches in the world, they will not achieve much. The new new coach has failed even before he starts.
We have to be ashamed the way we play soccer,bringing another coach from outside will solve nothing but we have to change the whole team..