Latest Updates

November 2007

In this edition of latest news a quick up date on what has been going on here in Malawi and elsewhere.

26th November

Malawi Return to winning ways after they destroyed Swaziland in a recent International Friendly 3-0 played in Manzini Swaziland.

Malawi scored early on through South African based Ajax Cape Town striker Russel Mwafulirwao made it 1-0. Malawi continued to press and when Esau Kanyenda made it 2-0 with a well taken shot it looked all over.

The second half began with  Malawi being reduced to ten men after a shocking decision by the local referee and Swaziland seemed to take heart from this, a quick re shuffle by Constantine resulted in the substitute Noel Mkandawire smashing home the third and ending any possibility of a come back from Swaziland.

Constantine's comments after the game.

It was a tough game and I thought the lads did really well under the circumstances its never easy winning away from home and the fact we kept a clean sheet was also pleasing.
We have played 4 of Africas top teams recently and done reasonably well going down by the odd gaol and so it was pleasing to get the win in such an emphatic manner.

I have also just returned from a quick break in Cyprus followed by a 12 day course for FIFA in Cote D’Ivoire so as usual quite a full schedule.

In Malawi we are due to take on Swaziland in Swaziland on the 18 of November in an international friendly as we seek to use the FIFA calendar dates to get a much needed game in. In our last outing we lost 1-3 to Zimbabwe a disappointing result even though the game had no significance as Morocco had already qualified from our group for the African Cup of Nations Finals to be held in Ghana.

Looking back on our last few results naturally it has been disappointing as is any defeat but looking at the teams we have played you feel it is only a matter of time before we start turning narrow defeats into victories. Here are some of the results:

Lost to South Africa on Penalties (normal time 0-0) in the COSAFA Cup, South Africa won the tournament and have also qualified for the African Cup of Nations. Narrow losses to Senegal 2-3, Namibia 1-2, and Morocco 0-1, all teams that have qualified for the Finals in Ghana and though as I said tough to take looking at the bigger picture you feel that if we can sort the off the field problems and the overall structure of football in Malawi we have potential to be a good side.

We have three main areas of concern Youth Development, Administration and of course Facilities which must change and if we are to compete with the bigger teams we need to change now! This is difficult I know and as we all know change is not an overnight task and tough decisions’ need to be taken as inevitably there are people who will need to be replaced and new people to come in, this however is not my job and up to the powers that be of course assuming they feel the need to change the current structure. There is a great need to organize and set up Youth Academies here in Malawi as there is no real youth structure in place. I have been quite busy trying to set up the U17s and U20s in an effort to provide some players that will be able to step in and in time to play for the Senior National side in the years to come. My colleague Manfred Honer several years ago tried to do the same thing and many of the current players in the senior side came from his efforts. We have not done too much since then and of course we are now suffering the consequences of not having maintained and continued the work that Manfred did. We need to have young players knocking on the door which will provide competition for places and keep the senior players looking over their shoulders. The problem however is the this takes time and people expect instant results which as we all know does not happen especially when there is nothing in place to begin with. I will however keep trying as long as I see improvement and of course the willingness to move forward by all concerned.

In other news I was sent by FIFA to conduct a Futuro lll course in Cote D’Ivoire from the 20 -31 of October, and it was a real pleasure I must say. The course is really about helping to train Instructors to train coaches. We had Instructors from Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Mauritania, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, and of Cote D’Ivoire so a good mixture and a great group of lads.
Also had the opportunity to see a local game and also the famous Asec Mimosa Academy which is a great example to other African Nations how things can be done if you are organized and look forward.

All the best