30 Jul 2019

The senior national football team, Zebras will play against The Flames of Malawi in the 2022 FIFA World Cup African qualifiers preliminary round. 

The two will face each other in a home and away knockout game between September 2-10 and the winner according to Cafonline, will join 26 exempted teams for the group stages, which will have 10 groups of four teams each. 

The draw for the groups will be based on the seeding of the 40 teams into four pots based on the FIFA ranking. 

Botswana Football Association (BFA) spokesperson, Tumo Mpatane said in an interview that they knew their opponents  well, adding that they were also cognisant of the fact that they were in a process of rebuilding their team.

“They have brilliant players like Frank ‘Gabadinho’ Mhango and Gerald Phiri Jr and these are players who featured recently at the COSAFA Cup,” he said.

He pointed out that though the team had good players, the Zebras would do everything possible to make it to the group stages.  

He said they were going to do their own research against The Flames. “But it is a nice draw and we are going to compete. Our intention is to go all the way, so we are happy with the draw,” he said.

Hopefully, he said BFA would have appointed a new coach when the two teams meet.  

He said his hope was that the association would ensure that Mogomotsi Mpote, who is the caretaker coach at the moment, would work together with the new coach.

“The current coach has assembled a team that is working together for a common purpose and I think it is important to understand that going forward, whoever comes in as a new coach, will be looking at a structure that he has set up,” he said.

Football Association of Malawi competitions and communications director, Gomenjani Zakazaka said the draw was a fair one. 

He said the Zebras had improved, adding that The Flames had always found it difficult to play against the Zebras.

“We have not beaten Botswana in a competitive match. We were in the same group in 2012 AFCON qualifiers, but they proved to be a hard nut to crack,” he said.

Zakazaka said they played to a one-all draw against the Zebras in the COSAFA Cup last year, adding that from the past meetings, it had shown that Botswana had been giving Malawi a tough time.

“According to the latest developments, the two teams are in a rebuilding process. We saw the Zebras, which was made up of youngsters at the COSAFA Cup this year, going as far as to the finals. 

The team was made up of Under 23 players, which we faced during the Olympic Qualifiers in November last year,” he said.

Malawi, he said, was also in a rebuilding process adding that from the Olympic Qualifiers squad, they took 11 players to feature in the COSAFA Cup.

“We now have a new coach and playing against Botswana will be his first assignment. So it is upon him to prove to the Malawians why he was given the responsibility to lead the team,” he said. Ends