Malawi National Football Team Coach Patrick Mabedi has attributed his charges’ poor showing in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers to inadequate time for preparations.
The Flames are still without a win in the qualifiers after four matches and are bottom of the table in Group L without a point.
They started the qualifiers with a 3-2 loss to Burundi before enduring a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Burkina Faso.
Malawi then succumbed to a 4-0 hammering by Senegal before going down 1-0 to the same team at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe on Tuesday.
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But Mabedi said his players were unable to last the entire 90 minutes due to limited time in camp.
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Mabedi said he only had two days to prepare the team for the match after flying back home from Dakar.
“The length of time we were given for camping is one of the factors among the many challenges my team faced. If you check teams such as Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, every time they have a game, say in a month, they meet for at least two weeks.
“And again if you look at Senegal players, they were physically fit unlike our players. The simple reason is that most of our players do not go to the gym at their respective clubs. So this is a problem,” he said.
Football Association of Malawi (Fam) Technical Sub-committee Chairperson Christopher Kuyera said there were many challenges that needed a holistic approach.
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“While it is obvious that everybody in the football family is complaining about the team’s poor showing in this campaign, we should also consider that most of the players did not go through proper football structures.
“Most of them go to the national team straight from their Super League clubs. We have, in recent years, put a lot of emphasis on the end product without looking at key factors like sponsorship, infrastructure, funding and youth development. But it is time we started hunting for a lasting solution together. We all need to sober up and see how best we should do this,” Kuyera said.
Meanwhile, former Flames forward Esau Kanyenda has suggested a meeting involving all stakeholders as the only immediate solution.
“During our time, there was no shortcut. Players could not be pushed to the national team without merit. Some of us were spotted while playing for smaller teams and we went on to play professional football abroad.
“If you analyse this matter critically, you will see that some of the players are being incorporated into the national team just because of performing well in just a single match. Things do not work that way. Every player should go through the steps before finding their way to the national team,” Kanyenda said.
He advised government and Fam to work hand-in-hand to secure more funding and investment into the game if the Flames were to improve their performance.
The Flames’ next assignment in the qualifiers is an away match against Burundi on November 11 before hosting Burkina Faso four days later at home.
