It was a day for Eagles to fly into the Castel Challenge Cup round-of-32 nest after preying on their opponents as the round-of-64 kicked off in style Wednesday.
Blue Eagles were the biggest winners of the day with a 4-0 hammering of Central Region Football Association Premier Division side Layman Panthers at Civo Stadium in Lilongwe while White Eagles booted out fellow Southern Region side MMF Marine 2-0 at Mpira Stadium in Blantyre.
Panthers Coach Atanazius Jabulani said his charges gave away possession cheaply.
“We managed to contain Eagles for 40 minutes and we should not have lost this game. We made mistakes at the back and conceded silly goals. We will work on this as we return to league action,” Jabulani said.
Eagles Coach Eliya Kananji said playing against Panthers was not easy as they did not know what to expect.
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“This is a team we have never played against; no wonder we struggled to contain it in the first half. We only came into the game after making some positional changes,” Kananji said.
Marine Coach Collins Nkuna said they have themselves to blame for the loss.
“It was a good game. We failed to make use of the chances we created and our opponents took advantage. We cannot blame anyone but ourselves. The officiation was just okay,” Nkuna said.
White Eagles Coach Karen Chaula said they had a plan for the Monkey Bay-based soldiers.
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“Marine like to play long balls and we cancelled them out with our short passes.
Of course we were not that good tactically in the first half. The improvements only came in the second half after we corrected our mistakes and imposed our game on them,” Chaula said.
Action in the competition continues today with Mighty Mukuru Wanderers taking on another lower league side Katete Rangers at Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre.
Castel Malawi is sponsoring the K320 million cup, which has seen a record number of teams taking part in all districts of the country.
