Malawi Under-17 Boys National Football Team coach Enos Chatama says he believes that he has assembled a good squad for this year’s TotalEnergies Caf U-17 Africa Cup of Nations 2025/Cosafa Qualifiers.
The tournament is scheduled for Thursday to September 20 in Harare, Zimbabwe.
The junior Flames are in Group B, which is considered a group of death, alongside defending champions Zambia, South Africa and Madagascar.
But Chatama told Football Association of Malawi (Fam) Media Tuesday before departure that they could use their underdog status to cause an upset at this year’s tournament.
“We are going with a purpose to win and qualify for Afcon finals. If they perform the way they have been training, we have a good chance,” Chatama is quoted as saying by the Fam website.
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Malawi last qualified for the continental finals in 2009, having lost to Burkina Faso in a bronze medal match.
In the semifinals, they lost to Gambia.
The team qualified for the 2009 Fifa World Cup finals but lost all the three matches to United Arab Emirates, United States and Spain.
He said the boys had good preparations.
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“We have been in camp for almost a month now and the boys have worked really hard,” he told Fam media.
The junior Flames will be looking for their first regional trophy in 24 years, having won it in 2001, when Malawi hosted the competition.
Last year, Malawi failed to progress beyond the group stages following 1-1 stalemates with Mozambique and Angola and 3-2 loss to Lesotho.
Malawi finished third in 2021 and 2022 but finished on position four in 2020.
They were eliminated in the group stages in 2019.
Chatama has travelled with a 21-member squad to Zimbabwe.
Twelve teams are taking part in the competition.
Top teams from each group will qualify for the Cosafa semifinal stage along with the overall best runners-up.
