Malawi Under 20 national team still have a chance to qualify for the Semifinals of the TotalEnergies U20 AFCON Egypt 2022-COSAFA Qualifiers currently underway in Eswatini if they win against Namibia this afternoon and results in other matches go in their favour.
It will be a game of mathematics as three teams in group C have a chance to finish top and book a place in the last four.
After two round of matches Comoros lead the group with six points after making it two wins out of two while Malawi and South Africa have three points each but the Junior Flames sits second on a better head-to-head record following their 2-0 win over South Africa in the opening match.
Malawi must beat Namibia with not less than a 3-0 margin and hope that South Africa beat Comoros by a one goal margin, to stand a chance of winning the group on goal difference.
If Comoros beat South Africa, they will win the group and Malawi’s hope of making it to the last four as best runners up will depend on the Patrick Mabedi’s side beating Namibia 7-0 to match the goal difference of Group A runners up Eswatini. They will also hope that Lesotho and Angola should drop points in their respective group B encounters on Wednesday.
Coach Mabedi said his subjects will give their best to get the result they need to remain in contention for knockout qualification.
“We have had a very good recovery session today. We tried to get rid of whatever happened on Monday as the approach was not good enough because we undermined Comoros after the win against South Africa.
“The boys now understand that this is a very important game which is a must win game and anything can happen if we win.
“We will go into the game and stick to our game plan which is attacking to score goals and not conceding any goal.
“We know Namibia will come into the game to enjoy and explore because they have lost the first two games and might want to frustrate us so we have told the boys to be extra careful if we are to win this game,” said Mabedi.
The two semifinalists will qualify for the TotalEnergies U20 AFCON Egypt 2022.
Source: FAM
