British sports scientist tips Flames
A British sports scientist, Samie Milton, has tipped the Malawi national football team to embrace sports science in order to turn around the fortunes of the national team during the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
Milton is pursuing BA Honours studies in sports science at the Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England.
Milton was in the country for one week to observe some of the programmes Surestream Academy was implementing in the country.
He had also been observing the national team training and he also watched the Zimbabwe match last Saturday.
Milton held talks with Football Association of Malawi (Fam) technical director, John Kaputa, and the national team doctors Matthews Mangondo and Levi Mwale.
“My first impression was that Malawi has good players and their fitness levels are good. But I think they let the nation down because they did not play to their strength. They did not seem motivated enough to play in the game of that calibre,” he said.
They need to have a strong leadership base to take them to the right direction and they must play to their strength. They must build on their mistakes and learn from their mistakes and realise what the qualifiers mean.”
Milton also said good nutrition was vital to the Flames’ success.
“I have gone through the basic nutritional instructions with the team doctors. The body needs to have enough energy. Before every match, the players need to eat enough carbohydrates and proteins, good fruits and not eating a lot of junk food like fizzy drinks, biscuits, sweets or chips. Even though there may be budgetary limitations, the players need to have good nutrition in order to perform well,” he said.
Milton also said Malawi should embrace sports science to achieve success in sports.
Kaputa said the meetings that the Flames team doctors had with Milton were vital in ensuring that national team players are well prepared for national duty.
“They were fruitful discussions. The national team doctors are qualified sports medicine instructors, therefore, they have learnt valuable concepts from Milton. We have also discussed a lot about grassroots development programmes therefore we expect to see more talent being nurtured,” he said.
Milton would be back in Malawi this year to work closely with Surestream in grassroots development programmes.
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