* The Zimbabwean is reported to have complained of chest pains and missed yesterday’s training session
* The report further said he was then ferried to the hospital where he spent Saturday night admitted for medical assessment
By Duncan Mlanjira
Zimbabwe’s online media, New Zimbabwe has reported some moments ago that coach Kalisto Pasuwa will not be available on the bench for Malawi in this afternoon’s African Nations Championship (CHAN) qualifier at Loftus Stadium in Pretoria due to illness.
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The New Zimbabwe reports that Pasuwa fell ill on Friday and quotes an unnamed source within the Malawi camp as saying the Zimbabwean complained of chest pains and missed yesterday’s training session.
The report further said the former Zimbabwe Warriors coach was then ferried to the hospital where he spent Saturday night admitted for medical assessment and, meanwhile, Malawi will be led by Pasuwa’s assistant, Peter Mponda.
Fam.mw fell short of mentioning this development in its preview of the match and just quoted Mponda’s sentiments ahead of the fixture kicking off at 15h00.
While Mponda and the technical panel are very well aware that after losing 0-1 in the first leg South Africa went back home and reinforced their squad, Mponda said they were not perturbed over it, saying: “We’re not losing sleep over the changes they’ve made to their squad.
“If anything, it shows there’s a bit of panic in their camp — our focus is to stick to our strategy and execute it at Loftus Stadium,” he is quoted as saying by Fam.mw.
“We are well-prepared. We’ve reminded the players not to get carried away by our 1-0 lead. We need to be cautious and strike a balance between attacking and defending. We haven’t come here just to defend, we have a clear game plan.”
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Meanwhile, South Africa’s coach Molefi Ntseki is quoted by SAFA.net as saying his players are determined to claim the ticket by the time the dust has settled: “We have to sweat blood without the ball, we have to minimise chances, space and time for them on the ball.
“We have to deal very well with set-plays should we give away set-plays. So, a no-concede approach is an approach that will definitely help us to score goals. We have to come from a solid foundation defensively and also be very aggressive and robust in attack, that will definitely give us goals.
“When we look at this game, we are sending more players in attack so that we can outnumber their defensive block because even in Malawi, they were very deep defensively.
“This is why we could not get many chances of scoring and then from a set-play, they managed to score,” said the South African.
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This is a very crucial moment of the qualifiers as winners will qualify for the CHAN finals in August to be co-hosted by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania — placed in Group C alongside Uganda, Niger, Guinea, and Algeria, who beat The Gambia on Friday with a commanding 3-0, securing a 3-0 aggregate victory for the North Africans, who had held the Scorpions to a goalless draw in Bakau in the first leg of the playoff last week.
