* People might take Namibia as one of those small teams but there are no longer small teams in Africa these days
* These are teams that will give you problems — so that’s the game that we need to put our minds together
Maravi Express
Head coach Kalisto Pasuwa wrapped his preparations last evening at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe, venue for this evening’s FIFA World Cup 2026™ qualifier — and at a press conference yesterday afternoon, he said the Flames “need to grind everything in front of us in order to come up with positive results”.
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The Flames go into the match, sitting 4th in Group H with six points, 4 points behind leaders Tunisia (10); two behind runners-up Namibia and one behind 3rd-placed Liberia (5); three ahead of 5th-placed Equatorial Guinea, while São Tomé e Príncipe are second with eight points.
On facing a much improved side that sit above Flames on Group H standings, Pasuwa said: “People might take [Namibia] as one of those small teams but there are no longer small teams in Africa these days.
“These are teams that will give you problems — so that’s the game that we need to put our minds together in order for us maybe to pick up a result, we need to grind everything in front of us in order to come up with positive results.”
On how the team is prepared, Pasuwa said after having domestic league players since Monday with 16 players, the training sessions went on very well as all the players were okay in terms of physical fitness.
He hoped that they will quickly adjust on the tactical part, especially since they were to have their last training session last evening and on the advantage of having all foreign-based players available, he said: “Remember their season is in progress unlike us so it’s good also for us in terms of fitness.”
“If [the domestic league players] are down, these foreign-based players can give us a plus in terms of fitness when we are playing — and they are also helpful in technical awareness of football.”
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After tomorrow’s assignment, the Flames will travel to Tunis to face Tunisia for the second leg, whose first was won by the Carthage Eagles at Bingu National Stadium.
Pasuwa goes into the matches with four back-to-back clean sheets — against Burundi drawing 0-0 away and Burkina Faso winning 3-0 in the ceremonial Africa Cup of Nations (AfCON) Morocco 2025 and 4-0 aggregate win against Comoros (2-0 in each leg) of the African Nations Championship (CHAN).
On these results, Pasuwa said it’s good on the team when building a team as it has to start from the back: “We hope that maybe when we play tomorrow, we will get our full senses so that we must avoid conceding.
“You know in football anything can happen but our plan firstly is to be solid then we move on maybe to deal with other areas.”
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On building a strong team, Pasuwa has selected Ephraim Kondowe over Silver Strikers’ Binwell Katinji, who scored in each of the games against Comoros and the coach said was given targets on two different tournaments, the AfCON 2027 and FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
“So, we have plans and for each and every games we are playing. On the selection of Ephraim Kondowe, if you look on age difference with Binwell Katinji, Kondowe is younger and remember we are also looking at 2027.
“I am not saying Ephraim is coming to play but he is a player who is learning and see the system that we want to use. Binwell is a good player, who gave us what we wanted in his two matches against Comoros and I think in future games he might have a chance to play.”—Content by Fam.mw; editing by Maravi Express
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