The Malawi National Football Team suffered their second defeat at the just-ended Four Nations Tournament following a hard-fought 2-1 defeat to Zambia at Bingu National Stadium on Tuesday afternoon.
The two neighbors were fighting for a third-place slot after they both lost to Zimbabwe and Kenya, respectively.
The Chipolopolo Boys gave away a 2-0 lead to the Warriors to draw 2-2 in the normal time before losing 6-5 on penalties while the Flames were hammered 4-0 by the Harambe Stars.
Head Coach Patrick Mabedi made several changes to his squad as he replaced Brighton Munthali, Robert Saizi, Joseph Balakasi, Chimwemwe Idana and Chawanangwa Kaonga with Innocent Nyasulu, Lawrence Chaziya, Lloyd Njaliwa, Patrick Mwaungulu and Lanjesi Nkhoma.
The 4-5-1 formation saw Malawi struggling to break Zambia’s solid defensive wall as Gabadinho Mhango was completely outnumbered and hardly made any meaningful attacks into the opposition’s box.
It was a very offensive approach from Avram Grant’s men who kept on knocking at Malawi’s goals and they should have had a goal in the 13th minute when Chaziya misjudged a cross from the right flank that nearly found Kennedy Musonda who was unmarked on the edge of the six-yard box, but the striker was late to pounce on Malawi as he allowed Nyasulu to arrive on time to produce a fantastic save to deny the Zambians from taking a lead.
But it was just a matter of time before they broke the deadlock in the 16th minute through Clatous Chama who scored a brilliant free kick, bending the ball over Malawi’s placed defensive wall to the right-hand side of Nyasulu who could only watch the ball roll into the back of the net, 0-1.
As they were still in a celebratory mood, they doubled their tally with another beautiful strike from Leicester City’s Patson Daka who was set through by Obinno Chisala’s excellent pass into the Flames’s defensive box. The forward wasted no time by slotting the ball past the defenseless Nyasulu into the bottom corner, 0-2
The visitors dominated in every aspect of the game, but they allowed Malawi to get back into the game towards the end of the first half through Chaziya who connected well from Mwaungulu’s free-kick to beat Toaster Nsabata who had left his defensive area so early before the delivery into the box, 1-2.
After the recess, Mabedi brought in Nickson Mwase for the injured Jubril Okedian while Andrew Phiri replaced Musonda. Malawi kept on struggling to contain the Zambians, especially in the midfield where they completely dominated.
This forced Mabedi to bring on board Chifundo Mphasi, Kaonga, and Idana for Mhango, Mwaungulu, and Njaliwa. These changes saw the hosts switching to a 4-4-2 formation. This improved Malawi’s attack into the opposition’s half, but they lacked the finishing composure in front of goals.
Wisdom Mpinganjira almost came close to scoring when he was set up by Mphasi, but the winger blasted his effort over the crossbar from the penalty box.
The Flames tried to push for a goal, with Mphasi missing an opportunity inside the penalty box when he headed wide from Mpinganjira; ‘s cross, and in the end, 1-2 it ended.
The result means Mabedi’s charges have finished bottom of the standings with no win, scoring one goal and conceding six while Zambia finished in the third position, behind Kenya and Zimbabwe who finished in the first and second position, respectively.
The Kenyans won the tournament following a convincing 3-1 win over Zimbabwe in the final match. Micheal Olunga scored a hat-trick to inspire the Harambe Stars to an emphatic victory.
