Hopefully, our so-called veteran coaches watched Morocco
On Tuesday evening, I was glued to the television watching Morocco dismantling Ivory Coast 1-0 to qualify for the quarterfinals of the on-going 2017 Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon.
Much as I was impressed with Morocco’s tactical discipline under the tutelage of Coach Herve Renard, I was partly worried considering that they are in the same group B of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers with Malawi and Cameroon.
Rachid Alioui scored with a terrific shot from 25 yards to earn the win for Morocco.
Ivory Coast needed a win to go through but gave a listless performance, creating only two chances of note.
The discipline in Morocco’s backline and the Atlas Lions’ attacking verve confirmed that the side was being drilled by a coach who knows his job.
When I consider that this is the side that will be fighting for a 2019 Afcon group B slot with Malawi, since Cameroon already qualified by virtue of being hosts, I become scared.
Malawi is a country which has invested a lot in coaches, hoping that they will be geniuses on the bench. But alas! There is no progress in terms of the standard of play of our teams.
It will not be an overstatement when I call some of our so-called veteran coaches a bunch of tactless individuals whose mid- 1970s Ted Powell techniques have been overtaken by events of modern football.
Some of our veteran coaches have remained loyal to those primitive football tactics that time has long forgotten. This has only given advantage to our opponents to punish us.
Some of our veteran coaches have become so hopeless and relying on them to coach a national team in a game against Morocco is a recipe for embarrassment.
These are the coaches who started drilling the national team before the facebook era but they have no international trophy to show apart from a litany of embarrassing moments.
When Fam becomes so explicit and calls them a bunch of failures, they all become angry and curse the association still hoping that if given another chance they would bring change to our football.
Reality hurts. We cannot be calling a spade a big spoon. Seriously, with the misery they have inflicted on Malawi soccer, we cannot allow these people to continue being a big part of our lives knowing fully that they are beyond redemption.
The rigidity of the model of their game has been annoying and any serious football administrator cannot even consider them to be anywhere near the national team.
Unless we invest in young experienced coaches, who have proven to be effective when coaching junior national teams, Malawi football will never develop.
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